
8pen reinvents mobile keyboard - Supermighty
http://www.the8pen.com/index.html
======
mattmaroon
This looks way too hard to get used to initially. The best thing about Swype
(which is truly remarkable) is that you already know how to get to all of the
letters. You dont have to relearn anything. You're able to rapidly type things
out of the box, with relatively low error rates for a mobile keypad, without
even thinking about it.

~~~
barmstrong
Anybody know how to get Swype on Android? It looks like there beta is closed
and it's not in the Android App store.

~~~
spacemanaki
What is frustrating about this is that I would gladly pay $10-$20 for Swype on
my phone, and I have never bought another app. They must be making a lot from
preloads, or the preload agreements stipulate that they cannot sell the app
through other channels, because everyone I know with an Android phone would do
the same. Seems like a lot of lost opportunity.

------
coderdude
It would seem they designed their site to look like something Google would
make. The colors used in the lines that separate the quadrants on the 8pen are
also reminiscent of Google's logo. Really hoping for that acquisition?

~~~
nostromo
Remember this guy? [http://www.toptechreviews.net/wp-
content/uploads/2010/04/Win...](http://www.toptechreviews.net/wp-
content/uploads/2010/04/Windows-Vista-Has-Ended-Its-Reign.jpg) Same colors.

------
moxiemk1
If this turns out to be easy to learn, it could be huge. Fluid movement offers
lots of possibility for high-speed.

Unfortunately, odds of getting this on my iPhone are about zero. This may be
the first software that has made me envious of Android.

~~~
Supermighty
Maybe you'll get luck and they'll release a version for computers with
touchpads.

~~~
meelash
It doesn't really offer advantages on a computer that it does on a small
device. Full size keyboards already allow no-look, potentially 100% accuracy
typing, with multiple fingers at once. That spanks this system even worse than
this system spanks mobile phone keypads.

------
JonnieCache
Just bought it, it's VERY difficult to use, even harder than I expected.

There's no control over the insertion of spaces, it automatically inserts one
after you release your thumb at the end of a word. So if you accidentally
delete a space that you need, which is likely during the learning process,
there is no way to get it back without also deleting the character before it
and adding an auto space. Also there is no way of preventing this automatic
space either, so web addresses and the like have to be entered as one very
long continuous gesture, without any mistakes; if you make a mistake you must
release your thumb to hit the backspace button, which you must now hit twice
because an unwanted space was just added.

Finally, the learning process is heavily hindered by the fact that your thumb
obscures at least one or two of the 'branches' during a gesture, which means
when you have to visually consult the screen because you have forgotten the
unusual spatial model (the direction matters too remember,) your only option
is to pivot your thumb without it leaving the screen, and hold your phone at
an odd angle so your can peer beneath your digit and decide where it should go
next. Not very practical.

Give me a spacebar and the ability to disable autospacing and I'll try it
again. Until then I'm sticking with swype, which allows me to type extremely
fast.

~~~
makeramen
here are some tricks I found regarding spaces:

-To type a space, go from center to any sector, then back to center

-To type a word without a space, don't end the word on the center.

~~~
mmavnn
You can just tap the center for a space as well.

The 'don't end on the center to lift and then continue the word' behaviour is
invaluable to me as I learn, and I have no idea why it's not mentioned in the
tutorial.

Also, if you make a mistake, you can go back segments as well as forwards as
long as you don't touch the center. Useful if you go to far or (my favourite
trick at the moment) realise that you've started in the wrong direction...

------
yason
This is good because it's spatial. The last really spatial typing method is
the traditional number pad. And it's reaaaally good despite the necessity of
having to press each button several times most of the time.

A spatial method can be applied without seeing the screen. The speed and ease
of spatial methods comes from the deterministic and predictable behaviour: you
learn physical finger patterns instead of reading the screen and adjusting
yourself all the time. So, in other words, it's one-way input instead of two-
way interactive typing.

If the screen surface had a tiny little dot embossed to the center, blind
writing would be even easier. The 8pen looks a bit weird though, so people
might have a hard time figuring it out first. If the quadrants were aligned to
0, 90, 180, and 270 degrees it might be easier to grasp. Also, I hope the
center isn't mandatory: you could just start from quadrant _n_ and move over
to quadrant _n+1_ , lift your finger, and start over.

~~~
anateus
Well, it _isn't_ actually spatial.

Keyboards are nice because after a while the location of each key is encoded
in your brain. Swype and its ilk (ShapeWriter, SlideIT) take advantage of that
by piggybacking on your already learned spatial knowledge.

This, however, is gestural rather than spatial: each letter is encoded via an
action, rather than a point in space. What this means is that there is the
same cap on efficiency as with handwriting.

Perhaps the best marriage of what 8pen is trying to do is basically something
like Swype, but on a keyboard layout that's optimized for the cramped space.
The pre-encoded spatial information will be sacrificed for greater eventual
efficiency. You would start out tapping, then graduate to the spatial
gestures.

(Re: the center, yes it's mandatory. They use non-center gestures as macro
storage)

~~~
yason
Well, it actually is spatial.

For what I saw, the input screen always seems to be the same and in the same
location, thus the input method is spatial. That is, you learn approxximately
how far each segment is from your handgrip and you can then whirl your finger
around the correct quadrants to produce letters, even without looking. Pretty
much how you operate a keyboard once you correctly learn the locations of
letters.

A gestural interface would allow you to do, well, _gestures_. A gesture is
like a vector: it has no location. You might learn that 'e' comes from
"starting from top, two segments to the right" but that gesture wouldn't have
a meaning unless you start from the correct location in the screen _space_.

------
charlief
On the keyboard front, we'll have to see. Swype, Graffiti, and the old
fashioned keyboard are more intuitive because they borrow something core about
our usage of inputting stuff: how we hand write a character for Graffiti, and
everything we know about a QWERTY keyboard layout for Swype. Swype is very
easy to grasp. For some reason, I see a much more competitive 8pen as a
gesture/menu command issuing system than a keyboard. Replace the characters
with commands and you have a powerful widget, even for games possibly. It
isn't a random set of umpteen gestures, there is some hierarchy and precision
built into the thing.

I feel the keyboard domain doesn't make use of hierarchy properly though.
Let's say the 8pen keyboard divides the keys into octants. Each octant does
not have a collection of related things. The letters I D G Z are not related
in any way, yet they are all arrived to by first moving up and rotating right.

To illustrate a better use of the hierarchy, I'll divide the thing into
quadrants instead of octants. Consider a widget to edit font. The top quadrant
could be font family, the left quadrant could be colour, the bottom is size,
and the right is style (bold, italic etc). Using this, if I wanted large text,
I would move to the size quadrant and rotate clockwise to select a large size.
Here you are taking advantage of the hierarchy and ranking such a widget could
provide.

The font example is really really lame, but the GUI they present has a lot of
potential. You can also divide the wheel into an arbitrary number of sections.
There are tons of application domains that would work for a component like
this. I just hope that 8pen isn't hell-bent only on giving us a keyboard.

~~~
zacharycohn
I think it's the difference between learning curve vs. optimal speed.

In your Font example (which I think demonstrates your point great), it's
easier to jump in to, but your "top speed" is a bit lower than if they grouped
it like 8pen chose to.

~~~
meelash
Not just a bit, but a lot, IMO! Some people are comparing this to the dvorak
vs. qwerty keyboard layouts.

A more apt comparison is to a keyboard laid out in alphabetical order vs. a
qwerty keyboard. The adoption of qwerty keypads on touch screens is 100% based
on familiarity and no ergonomic consideration in letter positions at all.

We're talking potentially major improvements in speed, assuming they have the
science of letter positioning correct.

(Please let them have it correct, or we'll have the same dvorak vs qwerty
nonsense all over again. Learn from history, people ;))

------
bhavin
I think one fact needs to be understood that the method uses thumb (of a
single finger) for all the typing..

I just did a small experiment.. I took the last text I sent from my phone
(about 300 characters) and tried pseudo-typing it according to the keyboard
the video explains.. and man, my thumb hurts! I would really prefer if there
was a way to input text with multiple fingers without slowing down.

wonder how tiring it would be to type everything with this method.

~~~
judofyr
Why not simply switch finger every now and then? It takes a fraction of a
second and fits perfect into the "release finger to insert space"-routine.

~~~
bhavin
the way its implemented, thumb is only convenient to type using the keyboard..
and if you're right handed, its extremely difficult to master it with left
thumb..

Its like learning to write with both hands if you want to switch thumb!

------
meelash
Wow, this is genius!

I don't understand why people are comparing it to Swype- just because both
involving swiping instead of taps? In spite of this superficial similarity,
don't you see they're solving radically different problems?

This system _eliminates_ inaccuracy and allows true no look typing! Think
about what that means for a moment.

Apple execs, if you're reading this, please license this technology and iphone
it.

------
random42
While I am not sure how effective/good 8pen solution is, the problem space
they are working in ("touch screen typing"), is bound to produce a winning
solution in next few of years. Interesting times.

------
nirmal
Like the concept, reminds me of QuickWrite. However, I am skeptical of claims
that text could be entered without viewing. At a minimum it seems that viewing
would be required to target the center circle. Maybe this could be solved by
"re-centering" the entire input space based on initial touch.

~~~
bilban
There must be a way to create an indent, or some kind of tactile homing
device.

~~~
nirmal
Sure thing. That is another way to hone in on the center. Some sort of tactile
gravity well implementation. I think that if 5-ways on candy bar phones were
actually joysticks instead of 5 buttons this may work better. And it could
definitely work on devices with mini-trackballs.

------
jollyjerry
When they were explaining how to form letters, the movement reminded me of
dialing numbers on a rotary phone, except that the possible combinations were
expanded because counterclockwise "dialing" is also allowed.

------
michaelhart
I can't wait to try this out :) It looks like a very cool concept, and while
watching the video, I doubted it at first. But I think with practice, that
could prove to be the best mobile keyboard ever.

~~~
Supermighty
I love keyboards when I'm using my laptop, a desktop, or a blackberry, but
I've never gotten the hang of of the virtual keyboards on either iPhones or
Android.

I'll be giving this a test run when it comes out.

------
noodle
the concept is interesting but i doubt it'll catch on. for reasons similar to
why dvorak didn't.

using this will require a learning curve, which will mean substantially
slower, more frustrating use before your typing becomes faster. and for most
of the masses, immediate expediency is preferred. most people will likely
switch back to normal keyboards before they actually successfully learn to
type on this.

as a side note, i love swype. its similar to this, and doesn't have the same
"relearning how to type" issue.

~~~
silentbicycle
Dvorak didn't catch on? I haven't seen an operating system in years that
didn't have Dvorak available as an optional keyboard layout, and I know
several people (self included) that use it.

It's not the default, sure, but there's still a critical mass of people using
it. There's value in that, much like there's value in a good keyboard-
alternative for touchscreens.

~~~
jonknee
Dvorak caught on like Esperanto "caught on". If you're a user yourself you
probably know other users, but otherwise you can go your whole life and not
encounter it. I doubt more than a few percent of people would even know what
Dvorak means, let alone use it.

The only reason there's OS support is that another key binding is trivial. How
many computers come with a Dvorak keyboard as an option? That's much less
trivial and would be a sign of critical mass.

Google pretty much agrees, there's a paltry 144k results for Dvorak:

<http://www.google.com/search?q=dvorak+%2Bkeyboard>

Swype already has 325k. Not bad considering Dvorak had a 70+ year head start.

~~~
silentbicycle
How many computers come with Linux as an option? (And how many still would if
installing it wasn't _significantly_ cheaper for manufacturers?)

As alternatives go, it's pretty established.

Also, while I know where you're coming from, Esperanto isn't a great example -
Dvorak is just as expressive as Qwerty, it just doesn't bend your fingers up
as much.

~~~
jonknee
> How many computers come with Linux as an option? (And how many still would
> if installing it wasn't significantly cheaper for manufacturers?)

A lot more than come with Dvorak. It also isn't typically cheaper with the way
Microsoft charges OEMs. If you're exclusively MS you pay less per copy.
There's no QWERTY pusher out there putting the squeeze on Dvorak.

~~~
silentbicycle
Last time I checked, computers running Windows, OS X, Linux, or BSD all come
with Dvorak.

------
makeramen
The learning curve along with the final max typing speed after mastery will be
key.

Very excited to try this though, will report back tomorrow :)

------
squarepeg
This reminds me of Palm's Graffiti system used on the Palm Pilot range of PDAs
[ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti_(Palm_OS)> ]. That system too used
simple gestures that mimicked hand-writing.

Rather than training the system to learn how to decipher the user's input, it
required the user to learn some basic gestures. The input speed may not have
been as fast as the predictive touchscreen keyboards on iphone/android phones,
but it was a pleasure to use and accuracy was second to none.

~~~
RodgerTheGreat
I think an important part of what made Graffiti so effective was the fact that
you had access to a complete range of alphanumeric and punctuation characters
without any need to switch modes. There were actually quite a number of
onboard programming tools for Palm devices, so I could easily write little
scripts in BASIC, Forth or OnboardC to pass the time or quickly try out an
idea. It made the device feel more like a computer and less like a toy.

Most of the touch-based keyboards I've seen on modern smartphones perform
acceptably when you're composing a message made out of English words, but you
can just about forget coding on one. Even Lua, which is well-known for having
a sparse syntax mainly composed of alphabetical keywords, is torture on an
iPod Touch.

------
nod
Swype seems a lot more likely to take off than this. Anyone else think that
the finger in their video seemed to move at superhuman speeds? Seems like a
_lot_ of finger motion for each character.

~~~
NickPollard
How much motion do you use when hand writing?

This looks to have a lot of potential, IF it can be learned easily enough.
This is the first mobile keyboard I've seen that I think could have the
possibility of blind typing, but we'll have to wait and see if it is
practical.

~~~
jonknee
Hand writing is also much slower and tiring than typing...

------
olalonde
IMHO, the killer technology for smartphone keyboards would be touch screens
that can get textured programmatically. For example, whenever the OS displays
the keyboard, the screen would instantly create a slight bevel over each keys.
I guess we're a few years away from seeing this though.

Edit: seems like there are already some research in that direction
(<http://www.technologyreview.fr/computing/26506/page1/>)

------
egypturnash
This looks pretty neat! I worry that the repeated circles that seem to be
involved will lead to some joint stress issues in the thumb that's doing it,
though. I'll find out tomorrow...

I feel like this has a potential for use without looking that Swype doesn't;
it only relies on hitting one big target rather than precisely and fluidly
hitting a bunch of small ones.

------
fhars
Seems to be similar to Quikwriting.
<http://www.mrl.nyu.edu/projects/quikwriting/> (which is patent-infested, too,
<http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6031525.html> )

~~~
lwhi
Ken Perlin produced a number of these systems; <http://mrl.nyu.edu/~perlin/>
(check under pen input)

------
moron4hire
Noted mathematician Ken Perlin has done quite a bit of tinkering in this space
on similar systems. In the right column, in the second row, check out the "pen
input" experiments <http://cs.nyu.edu/~perlin/>

------
Groxx
I would _very_ much like to see an example of a _human_ using the input. No
matter how skilled they are - in fact, the more they practiced, the better. I
have trouble seeing this as as-quick as a semi-intelligent QWERTY pad that can
correct most errors by proximity.

Sure, loops are fast, but are they as fast as a move and tap? And how about
ergonomics - is it more tiring, given that the distance travelled is _huge_
compared to many others?

Totally-blind typing: awesome. Huge advantage there where accuracy is
important (Graffiti ain't bad, but small errors can magnify as you may cause a
command gesture if you aren't watching). I'd call it a definitive "win" there.
But how about other uses?

~~~
meelash
This is measurable- the minimum diameter of a circle passing through the four
quadrants is the maximum distance the thumb can ever have to travel. Allowing
for some safe radius from the central dot, you would end up with a shorter
travelled distance for many letters, even in the worst case. Add to that the
fact that qwerty is not optimized _at all_ for the positioning of the thumb-
so G is a farther distance away than Q for example- and we're talking major
benefits.

~~~
Groxx
Oh, I dunno. Remember that repeat letters with QWERTY are distance-less, while
with 8pen they always cost the same (just look at how to type "pizza", as they
have it at the end. Even assuming best-case, that's hugely more costly with
8pen).

There are also few advantages / disadvantages with letter combinations, and
I'd bet most QWERTY words average close to 1/2 the keyboard-size travel
between letters or less. That's slightly less than 1/2 the narrow width of the
screen, _in straight lines_. A single, near-center gesture seems it would
exceed that pretty quickly, especially as people are likely to be much
sloppier than staying near the center.

~~~
meelash
hmmm.. yeah, I didn't think of the repeat letter advantage. In english, at
least, that does seem likely to be a significant advantage.

------
kleiba
This is a cool idea, but if I consider the speed at which I can touch type
versus the speed of my handwriting, this may turn out too slow in the long
run. It's too bad the video didn't show an actual person using this system,
that should have given a better impression. Also, Fitt's Law may become
relevant whenever you try to go back to the circle in the middle without
crossing one more line accidentally . The _Swype_ guys seem to have figured
that out quite well by predicting which word you're likely to have meant - I
wonder if there's anything like this included in the8pen, too?

(P.S.: Justin Timberlake says: "Drop the article in the URL")

~~~
Geee
It's really just a matter of implementation to allow "soft" detection of
gestures and make the estimate using the probability distribution of words and
letters in the dictionary like swype. It seems that there are hard boundaries
in the visual system, but I guess it's just gesture detection at heart, which
makes it pretty robust and fast in practice.

I've been actually prototyping a pretty much similar system, but I'm not sure
if it's a worthwhile venture. I guess it should be clearly better to have any
competitive advantage.

------
Trano
Its out now, and I was going to try it like a lot of other people have said,
but there is no way to try it for free. The cost isn't very high ($1.58 right
now) but with Swype already I don't see a reason to pay money just to try it.

~~~
Stuk
From the reddit conversation: you can return any market app within 24 hours
for a refund. Seems a bit cheeky, but it does allow you to demo it.

~~~
Trano
Good point, I forgot about that, I don't buy enough apps to deal with it much.
I guess I might as well try it out then.

------
chewbranca
I just picked this up. I have very large hands so I'm always looking for an
alternative to a standard on screen keyboard. This works amazingly well. I'm
already becoming proficient with it, and it is nice to build up a natural
rhythm once you get going. I am already 100% convinced and switching
completely over. I was slightly annoyed at first by the lack of a free trial,
but I figured this was interesting enough technology that whether I liked it
or not, I was willing to spend $1.58 to find out, and it was definitely worth
it for me. Highly recommended, that said, its not for everyone.

------
gord
The video takes too long to get to the point. A better approach might be to
sell the performance upfront very quickly, by having a video [ autoplay ? ] of
a real user entering real text ie. 8pen on iPhone actual footage. Only then is
it obviously worth the viewers time to go in more depth to see the
explanation.

Im presold on the idea that there must be a better way - swype is one well
known improvement. I dont need to be sold the problem, I need to see the
solution working in a real scenario before exploring further.

------
gills
This reminds me an awful lot of a system presented [1] in lectures on
accessibility research a couple years back that was/is an alternative gestural
input method for people with motor impairments. It's cool to see similar
concepts cross over into the mainstream...well, sort of mainstream, anyway.

[1] <http://depts.washington.edu/ewrite/>

------
kenjackson
Dumb question here, but why don't we simply use handwriting recognition?

Have a space at the bottom that is big enough to write two characters, so the
system can know when you've started the second character, you are done with
the first.

I could write with that super fast. And HW recognition is probably better, for
most people, than their mobile phone typing accuracy.

~~~
jbellis
Even with a pen/stylus, handwriting is only about 30wpm. Moving to a finger
would cut that in... half? worse?

~~~
artsrc
What I love about your comment is that it has an actual speed.

The answer on this is simple. Take random groups people. Give group swype,
give another group this. Train them for 10 minutes and test them. Report speed
and error rate, bindfolded and normal. The train them for another 20 minutes,
retest, then 30 minutes a day for 5 days and retest.

I doubt any group will get to 30wpm blindfolded.

------
rsaarelm
Tried this. The concept seems quite nice. Problem I'm having is that my thumb
sweats when pressed to the touchscreen and creates friction which makes doing
the continuous gestures unpleasant. Rubbing talcum powder into my hands seems
to help with this.

Still, I'll see if I can learn to write a bit more fluidly with this.

------
city41
Based on all the comments here (and the comments left on swype related
threads) I have to wonder if I'm the only person who is genuinely happy with
the iPhone keyboard? I can type extremely fast and extremely accurately on it.
I honestly don't think either Swype or 8pen would improve my wpm.

~~~
aikinai
I'm also very jealous of options like Swype and now 8pen, but I'm fairly
satisfied with the iPhone keyboard in terms of inputting individual letters.
What I don't understand is how Apple thinks that their current auto-correction
is acceptable.

Typing Japanese directly on a phone's numpad should be a huge pain, but the
phones have for years featured very intelligent prediction that makes it so
you can type much faster than English even though there are five letters per
key (as opposed to three in English). The phones come with standard
"dictionaries" and also learn your own patterns, so you rarely ever have to
actually type more than one letter of a word. Based on the rest of the
sentence, there are really only a few options of what could come next and the
phone can figure it out from one letter.

Whenever I'm typing on the iPhone and end up with crap like, "Okay, then ill
send you the file," I can't understand how something like this is acceptable
in 2010. There is absolutely no reason the iPhone shouldn't know what I'm
trying to type; even a simple grammar checker could solve this problem. A more
sophisticated prediction algorithm could drastically speed up typing on the
iPhone without changing the interface at all. If nothing else, at least stop
making me type apostrophes.

I really hope Apple sees the vulerability in their aging keyboard and buys
someone like 8pen or Swype so they don't fall way behind.

~~~
city41
On my iPhone 4 it correctly adds the apostrophe after typing "Okay, then ill".
As far as I can tell in all situations the phone considers "ill" to mean
"i'll". If you really meant "ill" you just have to tap the suggestion to tell
it no.

I can't see Apple going the route of Swype or 8pen, too confusing. Apple likes
simplicity (how many decades before they succumbed and released a two button
mouse?)

------
PatHyatt
I just ordered my android phone today and cant wait to try this. I am really
looking forward to trying this.

------
beefman
The video never shows it in use. That's because even after you learn it, it's
going to be much slower than typing. "Just like handwriting"... guess what;
handwriting sucks <http://lumma.org/microwave/#2007.07.12.2>

------
andybak
8pen reminded me about Dasher which I used to use a few years ago.

By coincidence Dasher for Android just hit the market:
[http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/DasherSummary2.htm...](http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/DasherSummary2.html)

------
paulsb
A couple of things with their video:

1) The keyboard (layout) was not invented for the computer, but for the
typewriter;

2) Their whole premise seems to be based on _'gestures that mimic
handwriting'_ , well why don't they just have gestures that are like
handwritten characters?

~~~
Rusky
Gestures that are like handwritten characters are harder to deal with on the
software side and slower to use on the human side. Handwriting recognition has
been around for a long time. I don't know how this will compare speed-wise,
but it's definitely simpler.

------
dov
I still think that traditional shorthand with error correction is the fastest
way to go without keyboard. Any system can be used, e.g. Gregg, Pittman,
Merlin, or a new system can be invented. Of course the learning curve is
substantial, though.

------
irrelative
Sadly this interface reminds me of the parody video as created by The Onion:

[http://www.theonion.com/video/apple-introduces-
revolutionary...](http://www.theonion.com/video/apple-introduces-
revolutionary-new-laptop-with-no,14299/)

------
cookiecaper
Having only looked at the pictures, it reminds me of GNOME's Dasher, which I
have never really had trouble with on the few occasions I've played with it.
So that's good because on-screen keyboards are pretty sucky at the moment.

~~~
andybak
Dasher for Android just became available.

------
jasondavies
It would be interesting to see a (trained) person using this, and how many wpm
they can get compared to using a normal phone keypad.

The video makes it look like it could be fast, but no hard numbers from real
experiments it seems.

------
sgt
I want to try this. Badly.

Currently on an HTC Hero with Android 2.2 The problem with the Hero is that
the keys are way too small. I have normal sized fingers (for a male) so I
reckon I'm not the only one with this problem!

------
jrockway
"Patent pending"? Gross.

Also, if it's not ready to download until tomorrow, why not just announce it
tomorrow? I would try it right now, but I know I'll have forgotten about it by
tomorrow.

------
AndrewDucker
I'll look forward to finding out if this is better than Swype, which also has
swiping from place to place, but over a normally laid out keyboard.

Lots of space for innovation here.

~~~
leif
I use swype now and am extremely happy with it. I can't imagine this would be
any better than it. With swype, I can enter n characters with a path of at
most n vertices, with this thing, it seems I need to create n differently-
sized arcs. Swype also has zero learning curve, assuming you know qwerty,
because you can use it as a touch keyboard by default.

It's not clear if the finger needs to be removed between letters (but I doubt
it does). This would worry me.

------
rbetts
The rotary phone comes to mobile keyboards...

------
pinchyfingers
My girlfriend is really jealous that I have Swype and she doesn't, I can't
wait to see how she reacts to this.

