Skip to Content

Swype could make typing easier on the iPhone

by Mike Schramm Sep 15th 2008 at 4:00PM

Still haven't caught on to typing on that little non-tactile keyboard on the iPhone's screen? This little tech, from the creator of the T9 system (dreaded by some, loved by others) being shown off at TC50, could be just the ticket. Swype is kind of like a gesture-based system, except that it uses the keyboard knowledge you already have -- just run a stylus (or your finger) around a qwerty-board, hitting all the letters in your word on the way, and the program will guess the word you were drawing. If you're looking for something similar that's already appeared on the iPhone, you might check out ShapeWriter's WritingPad, which we hope will be returning to the App Store soon (warning: loud video on page).

It's pretty wild -- his drawing "Mississippi" set off my "awesometer." Unfortunately, while the iPhone is given just a slight mention (can you name another touchscreen device that's used as widely?), it'd probably need a little tweaking. He's using a stylus (which on the iPhone is a no), and it'd be tough to draw with accuracy on a keyboard as small as the iPhone, even on the bigger horizontal version. Still, I like it, and Apple could always consider something like this for the iTablet, whenever they decide to release that. It'd be an easy way to overlay another typing method onto an already-working nontactile keyboard.

View Tags

Related Stories

Categories

Analysis / Opinion Hardware Software Cool tools

Still haven't caught on to typing on that little non-tactile keyboard on the iPhone's screen? This little tech, from the creator of the T9...
 

Add a Comment

Sign in »
*0 / 3000 Character Maximum

21 Comments

Filter by:
Asad

You guys have no idea what your talking about. I was at the conference and watched them demo the product on stage. It was wild. They invited the judges up to try it, and within a minute of trying it the judges were typing very fast. This could have alot of awesome implications for touchscreens where text input has generally sucked. Swype is legit, I dont work for them in any way but I just needed to clarify since I saw them first hand.

September 16 2008 at 8:43 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
kayly

i must to say you, that company call Dasur they heave the SlideIT, the SlideIT its working very well for me i have mio p360 and it's working perfect, you just need to slide the staylus ,
you can download demo from herehttp://dasur.co.il/Product/SlideIT/DownloadDemo.php

and to see it in action here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkFSGfe2NEQ

September 16 2008 at 4:00 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Bob

WritingPad for the IPhone & IPTouch work this way. It works quite well though as someone pointed out previously this form of input only work within WritingPad app.

September 15 2008 at 8:01 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
alansky

"...just run a stylus (or your finger) around a qwerty-board, hitting all the letters in your word on the way, and the program will guess the word you were drawing."

I should "hit all the letters" so that the program can *guess* the word I'm typing??? Sorry, but this sounds ridiculous!

September 15 2008 at 5:37 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to alansky's comment
Niklas

Looks ridiculous even! Look, he succeeds in writing Mississippi that fast! Sounds ridiculous! Just as ridiculous as T9! I mean, is T9 supposed to *guess* what I am writing? Sorry, that sounds ridiculous!


;-)

September 15 2008 at 6:16 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Silver

BRING TO IPHONE NOW!!!

(Yes, I have WritingPad. I'd like to see this as an optional input technique across all iPhone apps.)

September 15 2008 at 5:30 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
George

They should have a demo in their website so us Wacom users can try it out…

September 15 2008 at 5:05 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
punkassjim

"It should be standardized. You shouldn't have to learn a different text-input method for every device you go to."

Strange words from a dude who's hawking ANOTHER novelty text-input method, which will likely fracture the market even more.

Dumb?

Funny how the iPhone uses a pretty goddamn standard text-input method. And I can't believe people still have issues with using it. I don't get it.

This swype guy looks to have rehearsed his routine quite thoroughly, but can you imagine how long it'd take to re-train your brain to do that?

September 15 2008 at 4:56 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
4 replies to punkassjim's comment
Martin

of course this can work on the iPhone.

precision of the finger vs a stylus does not matter that much.


the current iPhone keyboard uses code to determine which key was actually hit, taking proximity into account.

combine that with this guy's code and u have a winner.

this is actually all very simple, i hope, for him, that the guy has a patent, (he probably does)

September 15 2008 at 4:48 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
GLacy

Writing Pad - Free- already on the iPhone.

oh yeah.

When does this technology come to the desktop and empty out the keyboard and typing class 101?

September 15 2008 at 4:35 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Fernando

That's rumored to be coming to windows mobile, not the iphone/

September 15 2008 at 4:21 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Buy an ad here

Hot Apps on TUAW

Tweets

© 2012 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved.