

Charlie Stross on iPad Writing - dbfclark
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/12/why-i-dont-use-the-ipad-for-se.html#more

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robertskmiles
I recently got an android phone and I've been deeply impressed by Swype, which
is an interesting idea. You put down your finger and move it over they keys
you want to press without lifting it until the end of the word. The system
then uses a lot of machine learning techniques to figure out what word you
were going for. It works far better than I think it has any right to, and when
typing english text i can now get pretty impressive speeds. I don't know about
wpm, but I'd say it's pretty much the same speed that i can type with one hand
on a normal physical keyboard.

I think this is one important area where Android is far ahead of (non-
jailbroken) iOS.

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bdhe
I also recently purchased an Android phone and have been very impressed by the
accuracy of Swype. However, I notice that in landscape mode, because of having
to move through a larger region, input entry slows down significantly. I find
myself always switching to portrait mode for text entry (with a 4.3'' screen
phone).

I wonder what the experience is on tablets where non-swype entry becomes
_easier_ as the keyboard size increases (unlike, in my experience, what
happens with swype).

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pragmatic
This criticism holds for Android devices also (including the Kindle Fire)

At least my old HTC Incredible had an optical joystick that made text
navigation much easier.

Please device designers take note: FINGERS ARE NOT PRECISE ENOUGH FOR TEXT
SELECTION!!!

 __at least adult male fingers...

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sbmassey
I wonder if vim would work on the iPad.

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funkah
He's right about positioning the cursor. It currently sucks, really really
badly.

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Cieplak
+1 for emacs mention

