

Why not build a handwriting word processor (not recognizer) for the iphone? - amichail

One could try using a drawing program, but a word processor built specifically for handwriting would be much better.<p>In particular, your handwriting would stay as handwriting, but can be word wrapped, easily copied/cut/pasted, boldfaced, underlined, italicized, etc.<p>The current onscreen keyboard would be replaced with a handwriting region of the same size where you can write a single word.  When you are done, that word would be inserted into the document at a much smaller size.<p>You could even have a search feature that looks for similar looking words.  It would not need to recognize letters, but it would need a similarity algorithm that could take advantage of temporal information.
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yan
First of all, it's not an easy task, technologically. Second of all, the
iPhone is conceptually a low-resolution input and a high-resolution output
device. Handwriting requires a high-resolution input. I think people in
general like poking at its virtual keyboard much more than fussing with some
program trying to figure out what they wrote.

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amichail
You can write in a large region that is the same size as the current onscreen
keyboard. When you are done writing a word, it would be inserted into the
document in a much smaller size. So I don't think resolution would be a
problem.

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madcaptenor
Yes, but people aren't used to writing a word and then moving back to where
they started to write the next word.

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amichail
They wouldn't need to do that. You would still have the notion of a cursor,
but it would be at word boundaries.

When you write a word and tap end-of-word (or perhaps pause), the word would
be inserted into your document. You could then write another word and it would
be inserted just after the previous word.

