5 ms·
I was just thinking the other day about how the last time I was ever happy composing text on a phone was when I had a Treo. I didn't do it consciously, but eve
by gdulli 13y ago
I was just thinking the other day about how the last time I was ever happy composing text on a phone was when I had a Treo.
I didn't do it consciously, but ever since Apple introduced the toushcreen keyboard and it became the standard I've changed my mobile usage pattern from primarily producing (composing text) to consuming (reading and playing games.) The novelty of playing games on my phone wore off quickly, but the loss of productivity has been permanent. For anything that isn't passive, the smartphone is more of a chore to use than it used to be. So I hope this works out.
- kordless 13y agoSwipe typing on Android rules.
- omaranto 13y agoIt probably rules on iOS, too.
- cocoflunchy 13y agoExcept that you can't change the default keyboard on iOS.
- reeses 13y agoInterestingly, many of the 'alternative' layouts don't have the same advantages on the phone.[1] For example, any of the layouts that emphasize home row locality, such as the * aks, don't really help when you're typing with two thumbs. The Sholes "slow you down just enough to avoid a physical constraint" method turns out to be useful when you have two digits flopping around with the potential of being in each other's way. Also, you can change the default keyboard at the application level[2], but this leads to annoying "edit here, copy, paste there" workflow solutions. You can also change it at the system level if you have a phone that can be jailbroken. A particularly awesome example of alternative keyboard implementations on iOS is Hipjot[3], which affords two-finger swype-style typing. The developer demonstrates 120wpm touch-typing on his phone[4] and advertises 70-90wpm on the Hipjot app store page. [1] Pretend I acknowledged the iPad. [2] Fleksy includes an SDK option. http://fleksy.com http://fleksy.com [3] http://jormy.com/hipjot/ http://jormy.com/hipjot/ [4] http://www.macrumors.com/2014/01/11/new-ios-swiping-keyboard-capable-of-120wpm-speeds/ http://www.macrumors.com/2014/01/11/new-ios-swiping-keyboard...
- omaranto 13y agoOh! Right. That totally slipped my mind, since I haven't used iOS for a few years now.
- lelandbatey 13y agoI really don't get how it's so awesome. I have SwiftKey on my android phone and it's never been faster for me to swipe Type vs just tape type with my phone. The predictions are some much easier and cause much less friction than trying to swipe everywhere. Can someone who really loves swipe keyboard explain?
- rhizome 13y agoIt's faster for me, but I think an underappreciated benefit is that it allows people to write text with either hand.
- rcthompson 13y agoSwiftKey is not Swype. I've tried SwiftKey, and whatever algorithm they use to figure out what word you were trying to swipe is terrible. With SwiftKey's swipe typing, certain words are simply impossible to type because there are other more common words along their path. In contrast, with Swype, I can consistently type any word I want to, and do so faster then with tapping each letter individually. Furthermore, since I just have to swipe my finger past each letter, swiping requires less precision than tapping, which requires me to hit the letter exactly.
- sigmar 13y agoreally? I think typing with modern touchscreen keyboards (with auto complete, word prediction, swyping, and gestures) is much easier and faster than tiny physical keys.
- city41 13y agoI would even write code on my PDAs that had physical keyboards. Touch screens don't even come close IMO.
- mike-cardwell 13y agoI use an HTC Desire Z. It's an Android phone with a hardware keyboard and it works fine. I'm running Cyanogenmod on it. Although I'll admit it's a couple of years out of date now.
- g8oz 13y agoAnd fearing that loss of productivity that has been enough to keep me on Blackberry