
A better iPad keyboard - mojombo
http://rosscarter.com/2010/320.html
======
awolf
I don't think this would work very well. iPad typing, like normal typing, is
all about muscle memory. Given a default position (fingertips hovering above
middle row) each of my ten fingers has learned how to reach for and connect
with each letter key. After reaching for a letter and tapping it my fingers
immediately return to the default position. To type a capital letter I quickly
tap shift with the pinky opposite the hand that will reach for that letter and
then it's business as usual. Same goes for the symbol keys on the second page.
This system minimizes the unique muscle movements needed to type the full
spectrum of letters, numbers, and symbols. Sure: I'm making more key presses
to type a single symbol in the current system, but many of those keystrokes
are motions that I have learned to make very rapidly since they are used so
often.

In this new scheme I'd be learning a new movement for each capitalization and
special character. Seems like it will be a while before I'd become nearly as
proficient as I am now (65wpm).

Also, adding flicks (especially downwards ones) to all of the keys seems like
a recipe for wrist strain.

There are some interesting ideas in this post, and I'm not saying there isn't
room for improvement on the iOS keyboards, but this isn't it. In the end I
think it just boils down to needing practice.

And yes: I'm biased. My buddy and I buuilt an iOS typing trainer called
TapTyping. We have seen people get some pretty impressive results:

<http://www.flairify.com/leaderboard/>

~~~
Zev
_In this new scheme I'd be learning a new movement for each capitalization and
special character. Seems like it will be a while before I'd become nearly as
proficient as I am now (65wpm)._

(Not so) Breaking news: New things take some getting used to.

If you really managed to memorize _three_ separate keyboards (regular,
numeric, symbols) and all of the tap/hold options they have, props to you.
But, memorizing three keyboards isn't something I've managed to do -- even
after using iOS pretty much since the original iPhone first came out. But, I'd
personally rather just have it all _right there on screen_ , without having to
hunt a key down.

~~~
awolf
I think we are talking about different use cases.

I'm coming from the perspective that you shouldn't be looking at the keyboard
when you type- virtual or not. Instead you are relying on robotic muscle
memory to generate a specific character.

So in my view there's a lot more new stuff to get used to in the author's
proposed scheme. We would be memorizing a distinct set of finger motions for
every distinct symbol as opposed to a fixed set of taps to certain positions
on the keyboard - some with one or more preceding modifier keys (that are
always at the same keyboard position).

~~~
Zev
I'm coming from the perspective of _the iPad is right in front of my face when
I'm typing and how can I not look at the iPad when using it?_

Apple took advantage of the iPhone to rearrange some parts of the keyboard.
Ross is taking advantage of the larger key size on the iPad to do the same and
(as far as I can tell) to scale back from having to memorize _three_ different
keyboards (thats not including the non-standard-but-still-available Email,
URL, etc keyboard).

And honestly? It sounds like you don't want to have to learn something new
again. Which is fine. But it doesn't make Ross's keyboard _bad_ in any way,
like you're claiming.

~~~
awolf
It's best to look at the text you're generating. Not the keys you are
pressing.

I would LOVE to try out the author's keyboard. It's great that someone is at
least trying to push touch screen typing forward. I remain skeptical that this
form of text input could be faster or safer for your wrists- but it COULD be
more enjoyable to use for short typing sessions which is also important.

~~~
Zev
_It's best to look at the text you're generating. Not the keys you are
pressing._

I haven't been able to separate the two on the iPhone/iPad; they're both on
the same screen and relate to what I'm doing at that exact instant.

 _I would LOVE to try out the author's keyboard._

If you like, email me your UDID and I'll email you back with the demo app the
author provides. Or maybe a build of Mobile Colloquy (an IRC client) with
this, if I have time to hack it together.

------
Zev
I had the pleasure of having Ross show me his keyboard about a month back, at
SecondConf. I really like the idea. It took a few minutes of getting used to,
but, _it works really well._ And it'll be even better when it has all the
little touches to pull it together (Gradients on press/in the direction thats
being flicked, graphics for all the keys, etc. See the README).

If you don't know, Ross Carter makes Pagehand (<http://pagehand.com>) for Mac.
Its a very nice text layout app that fills the gap of being somewhere between
TextEdit and Pages.app. I don't know if he's porting it to iOS, but I wouldn't
be surprised if he's thought _a lot_ about it and the best way to enter text.

Anyway, this is progress. It's the first non-Apple keyboard for an iOS out
there. It pushes iOS input forward into another direction (something that
Apple really hasn't done much of, for US text input).

~~~
niels_olson
The review of a hands-on user should be ranked above speculation by a
competing dev team. Unfortunately, that relationship is currently reversed. No
offense to the competitors.

------
tomn
I hate to be the one to point this out, but the keyboard on Windows Mobile has
had something like this for a _long_ time (drag up to shift, left to delete,
right for space and down for enter). It makes typing on iOS devices feel
really slow and laborious.

------
jmreid
The flick-up on comma and period is a nice shortcut.

Here's another one that's helpful: If you want to type just one character
that's on the numerical keyboard, don't just tap the ".?123" button, tap and
hold then drag to the key you'd like to press. This selects that key, then
immediately returns you to the alpha keyboard.

~~~
extension
On my iPad, when I try to do this with the shift key, it seems to have trouble
tracking where my finger slides. It only follows me when I'm moving really
fast. As soon as I slow down, it gets stuck on whatever key I'm over. It
doesn't do this with the .?123 key.

------
sirn
Slightly related: Japanese "Ten Key" keyboard[1] on iPhone did something
similar to this. Keys are mapped to consonants, with each flick direction
being vowels. Biggest caveat is that the learning curve is pretty high, since
you have to remember which vowel goes into which direction.

Apple did not implement this keyboard on an iPad, though. I assume because it
would be pretty awkward to use in a full-sized keyboard layout. (E.g. target
for full two hands vs. thumb)

[1]: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVy1p0v0Pow>

~~~
sliverstorm
That's pretty darn clever! That's the only time I've seen a language that
looked seriously type-able on such a small keyboard.

~~~
kentosi
sirn is damn right about the learning curve, but once you get the hang of it
(as I have), it's an absolute pleasure to type in Japanese.

So much so, that it makes you almost regret having to type English messages.

------
ctdonath
Author seems to not realize that several keys show alternates when held.

~~~
sfphotoarts
I didn't realize that either! Although it just took me a while to find any
that did, and even those that do are not very useful. For example round
brackets, I cannot seem to hold down any key to get that character.

My biggest grips is 'n'. I keep conjoining words with n because it seems as
though I hit that rather than space. Then autocorrect makes matters worse is
that it figures it out and rather than breaking the words, it instead keeps
the last word and drops the first. This is harder to spot when proofing than
if it had just left the conjoined word alone.

I mainly use the blackberry for anything typing heavy.

~~~
etfb
Years ago, I experimented with a speech synthesiser for the Commodore 64. You
used it the typical Commodore way: open a channel to the device, print command
codes to the channel. Something like OPEN 3,12,1: PRINT#3, "H0E1L0O3
W0E4R1L0D0";: CLOSE 3 would be the obvious first step (I'm making up the
details, but it gives you the idea). One funny thing was that, if you forgot
the semi-colon at the end of the PRINT# command, you got an "nnnn" noise at
the end of every statement. Why? Because all ASCII characters had associated
sounds with the synthesiser, and the end of line character, which the semi-
colon suppresses in a print statement, was mapped to the sound of the letter
N.

Decades later, totally different technology, and you brought up that memory.
Plus ça change and all that.

~~~
pak
I wonder if that was related to "\n", or if the synthesizer intentionally
mapped nonprinting characters to sounds (that would seem to make the command
set more complicated than necessary, but bytes were precious then so what do I
know.)

~~~
etfb
Could have been that, but I think it was just a coincidence. In CBMSCII,
pronounced "ka-BOOM-ski", which was the warped and bizarre version of ASCII
used on the Commodore machines, the end-of-line character was 13, aka Ctrl+M,
not the C/Unixy Ctrl+J.

From dim, distant memory, every one of the 255 characters had a sound mapped
to it, though surely I'm misremembering since there are only about 40 distinct
phonemes in English.

I just remembered that it was called SAM, and here's the Wikipedia link:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Automatic_Mouth> Ah, memories...

------
pbrumm
I was thinking a more ergonomic keyboard that auto sensed your finger
locations when you placed all 10 fingers on the keyboard would make a better
keyboard for the ipad.

for a touch typist the keyboard wouldn't even need to be visible, as setting
all fingers down again would reset to your current finger locations. Just
showing the keys as they are pressed may be sufficient.

Adjusting your fingers to the home row could be difficult. I have had the
fingerworks keyboards ever since they came out which has tactile dot's to re-
adjust your fingers to the home row. Switching so that the keyboard home row
moves to where your fingers are seems like a way to avoid the looking at the
keyboard on the screen.

Although since the fingerworks wasn't a wild success, this keyboard app would
probably be just for a nitch userbase.

------
jawee
I somehow think if every key were to implement this, then quick typing would
quickly lead to troubles. Why not simply do a long press for most punctuation
and show it underneath, as on Android? I used to hate this about my iPod
Touch, which I did a lot of typing on (often used for IM) and I am already
faster using the touchscreen on my Android phone then I ever was on my much-
used iPod (after 2 weeks with the phone and a year with the iPod).

That said, I doubt this is a independent-developer possibility. Alternative
keyboards for iOS have, thus far, been limited to their own app, such as
ShapeWriter as there is no way to implement them system-wide.. you can copy
and paste and what not, but it's far from convenient.

------
singlow
"Flicking down on any letter renders it in uppercase. Flicking downward with
two or more fingers anywhere on the keyboard toggles Caps Lock, which is
identified by swapping the uppercase and lowercase labels on the flickeys."

It seems that the Caps Lock idea should not be limited to the upper and lower
cases. I would propose that a two finger swipe in any direction could shift
the keyboard and replace the primary key faces.

Flick a single key with one finger to type from the alternate characters in
that direction.

Double flick up, right, down or left to shift-lock in the chosen direction.
Shift-locking consecutively in the same direction would cycle in order.

A two finger tap could return to default.

------
softbuilder
Interesting idea, but most interesting is the retention of capslock. Is there
ever a real use for capslock anymore? I can imagine turning it on by accident
and promptly going insane.

~~~
icegreentea
Well, if you want to type in all caps for some reason, then caps lock on iPad
keyboard seems much more usable than hitting shift, hitting key, hitting shift
again, repeat repeat. Especially if you might be using the keyboard one
handed.

------
kgermino
_By the way, .?123 is an odd label. You can already type . and ? from the main
keyboard._

Minor Note: This is a holdover from the iPhone keyboard which has no
punctuation marks on the main letter keyboard. I'm not sure whether it's
better to keep the symbols the same or not but I can certainly understand why
Apple would have the somewhat redundant symbols on the button.

------
stcredzero
I think this guy takes it a couple of steps too far. If he noticed that the
keyboard doesn't give him enough feedback about where some of the
shifted/modified keys are, then increased display of the character options is
called for, not introducing an entirely new movement.

------
stevenwei
I've been wanting to do this for a while now.

Surprisingly, if you look at the date of the post, it was originally written
on April 23rd, 2010, a few weeks after the iPad was released.

------
44VIIIV
I'd just settle for Swype.

~~~
enjo
I'm not sure swype works well in the iPad context. I don't even like to use it
in landscape on my incredible. It's too much distance to swype.

~~~
Terretta
Long before Swype, I enjoyed Fitaly on keyboards that were so small they
needed a stylus.

Fitaly is designed to minimize single finger travel:

<http://fitaly.com/fitaly/ofkey.htm>

