

Palm Pilot Graffiti - NonEUCitizen
http://observatory.designobserver.com/feature/interface-runes/35108/

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mootothemax
Graffiti was very much a good hack for the time; when you consider how badly
Apple screwed up with the handwriting recognition in the first Newton PDAs, it
was a neat innovation to sidestep the problem.

I wouldn't like to return to it though; these days, I run Swype
(<http://www.swype.com/>) on my Android phone, which I find to be incredibly
quick and easy to enter text with.

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jbl
Yup, I have fond memories of my USRobotics Palm Pilot 5000.

I think another reason Graffiti worked so well is that it's just plain easier
to train a human to use an alphabet that's similar to their native alphabet
than it is to do full blown handwriting recognition. In other words, it wasn't
just that the graffiti gesture set was easier to recognize by software, but
also that people could learn a gesture set that could "help" the software
along.

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EzGraphs
When I first saw that Graffiti, I thought it would take a big investment of
time to adjust my writing style. As I recall, I was able to get by with just
adjusting the way I wrote a half dozen characters or so, and just printed the
way I had learned as a kid. This was sufficient for the small notes I entered
into the Palm.

For all of the coolness of the iPhone, I don't enter notes into it often. The
little type-writer kind of feels unwieldy. It is usable, and it may just be my
perception (comparing typing on a full size keyboard to typing on the on-
screen iPhone version). Makes my kind of miss Graffiti and using a stylus.

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sopooneo
I really think some sort of equilibrium is going to be reached that brings
back the stylus or at least a functional equivalent. Fingers just aren't
precise enough for some things

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seclorum
This is a good example of why software patents are ridiculous. Graffiti is
perfectly useful technology - it would be wonderful to have Graffiti on the
iPad, in my opinion.

But alas, it cannot be done, because: patents and 'intellectual property'.

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joelhaasnoot
There's an Android app that perfectly recreates a Graffiti keyboard as an
Android keyboard. Works quite well, you just need a capacitive stylus with
most phones now.

I actually loved Graffiti - much faster with it than Swype which is bundled
with my Samsung Galaxy SII. Partly that's because I hate the predictive nature
- being quite bilingual it's a pain to keep switching languages.

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z1g1
With a Galax Note and the Graffiti Keyboard [http://www.amazon.com/ACCESS-
Systems-Americas-Graffiti-Andro...](http://www.amazon.com/ACCESS-Systems-
Americas-Graffiti-
Android/dp/B004U29JUQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1342441039&sr=8-2&keywords=Graffiti+keyboard)
I get the old experience from my Handspring Visor on a much nicer device!

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aladds
What most people don't realise is that Palm actually produced Graffiti as an
alternative input method for the Newton before they released their own device.
For the early devices (OMP, 120, 130) it was incredible compared to their
terrible handwriting recognition. The later MessagePads (2000, 2100) were
quite a lot better, though (and the eMate had a keyboard).

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awayand
on android you can get graffiti as a keyboard, I wish this was possible on ios

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eperoumal
Sure bring back old memories, as a former Palm TX user. I predict that in ten
years from now, someone will write something similar concerning gestures in
WebOS :)

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lflux
Sure does. Graffiti destroyed my handwriting totally.

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bdcravens
I wonder what % of HN readers are totally confused by this? 50%? 75%?

