New Keyboard Concept Tries To Change Our World

[WenWM]

[video=youtube;q3OuCR0EpGo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3OuCR0EpGo[/video]

I love seeing someone try to change the way we work and goes the extra mile to improve our productivity with simpler software, but sadly this does not seem to be one of those moments. This new keyboard concept was originally posted by Phandroid, and they also don’t seem to like the idea as well.
Personally I think it takes too much time to do a little task that would take seconds with a physical keyboard or Smart keyboard. They also try to make on screen keyboards seems really bad in the beginning, which make the concept seem like a huge jump to the future and that is just not right.

The video demos the function of this software, where you slide your finger around in a circle to input text, a bit like using those old timer phones.

I don’t know how everyone will feel about this concept. I really do hope some people like it, but personally I don’t think will use it as my main keyboard (which isn’t a big deal since I have a slide out) but I can always try it out when the beta is out.

What do you guys think? Would you use it as your main, or maybe just a quick test?

 

[Krish]

looks annoying.

 

[spaz33g]

Its an interesting concept but it doesn't seem very intuitive. I'm sure I'll end up trying it out but I'm sure I'll stick with swype.

Sent from my DROID2 using DroidForums App

 

[pinballwizard]

I think it has great potential, ill definitely try it. they do have a good point about how hard it is to type on on screen keyboards, but forgot to mention that its only with one hand it's hard to type with, seems like theyre trying to make the people who invented the keyboard look evil and make them selves look like heroes who came along to save the world with their new easier typing idea.

 

[iamasongnow]

it could work if enough people gave it a try. sure, it looks like they put a lot of time and effort into it. unfortunately though, i think qwerty is something that's here to stay. the way our keyboards are today (the layout) are only the result of someone being in the right place at the right time. qwerty didn't become so successful because it was THE BEST or anything... there are others out there, dvorak for instance, which are better designed but just haven't caught on.

idk man.
swype still has my vote.
if they would just quit pansying around and take it out of the beta stage.

 

[Droid_3.0]

I guess we will know tomorrow

 

[jstafford1]

Interesting

Sent from somewhere...

 

[Bilgediver]

If I were learning the keyboard from scratch, I can believe this might be more intuititive on small devices that use "gestures".
But thats where the problem comes in.

I know the qwerty keyboard by heart, so much so I don't even bother looking at my fingers. I do sometimes but its more out of habit than anything else.

They should've developed this back when Palm was king in the PDA world, and still using gestures.

Imagine what writing would've been like on a Palm PDA back in the day....

 

[Inkarnit]

I dunno. Seems... bleh. I mean, maybe qwerty isn't the most optimal setup around, but it's the most well known and I can type on it with my eyes closed. When I'm using swype, I know where the letters are supposed to be and can type lightning fast. Why would I want to learn an entire new typing method just for my mobile phone? Seems like too much extra work, and I'm usually all about change.

 

[TwerpPoet]

I'll give it a try. It doesn't look that hard to learn, and it isn't like I have to give up my other keyboards. It would help if it had predictive and autocorrect features.

They are right about one thing. There should be a better way of entering text on devices as small as these. Since I'm not fond of the idea of talking to my phone in public I'd prefer to have it be something touch based.

 

[KZIWarrior]

... Really???... what idiot(s) thought this up... would take longer to enter a word than just hen-pecking one letter at a time with an on-screen keyboard... Even if there weren't advanced keyboards like Swype this would never take...

It reminds me of an old Onion spoof were Apple used the iWheel as the sole input source:rofl3:

 

[KZIWarrior]

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard | The Onion - America's Finest News Source | Onion News Network

Yep, sounds about right, 45 mins to type an email...
"I'll by anything if it's shinny and made by Apple" :rofl3::rofl3::rofl3:

 

[curtdragon]

Now we have to memorize another keyboard layout, eh I'll pass

 

[TwerpPoet]

... would take longer to enter a word than just hen-pecking one letter at a time with an on-screen keyboard...

I don't see any physical reason why it would.

First glance I though as you did. Tapping a button is faster. Then I realized that I still had to move my finger from button to button. 8pen takes advantage of the necessary movements while eliminating some of the need for precision, much like Swype. Unlike Swype you won't be depending on the software to guess what you meant.

In the end it is going to come down to how well interface software performs, how hard it is to learn, and whether the ergonomics of the circular gestures are going to be sustainable. When muscle memory kicks in it has the potential to be reasonably fast.

The QWERTY keyboard isn't some sort of gold standard. It survives simply because most of us can't be bothered with going through the painful process of learning another method, me included. I'll never go through the trouble of learning another keyboard.

But something that might be better than a keyboard (on small devices) I'll at least give a fair chance. It's not like my other keyboards are going away.

 

[ja2038]

I really like Swype for taking out the annoying tap tap on glass, but it makes too many mistakes for me to feel good about not proofreading what I wrote very closely. And error fixing is a pain.

So I am very glad to see this come out, and I am hopeful it will be easier to learn than the video seems to imply.

Regardless, I think I want to bone the narrator.