“WritingPad” is the future of mobile text input
I’ve been playing with WritingPad for a while now. It was released on the iPhone AppStore in July. It requires the iPhone 2.1 software update. Their official application description is as follows:
“Store notes and send email using ShapeWriter on your iPhone. ShapeWriter is a revolutionary text input technology that enables you to enter text into the iPhone by tracing word shapes rather than typing letters. Each shape traced on the soft keyboard with your finger is recognised as a word. Error correction is fast and easy. For rare names and acronyms, type only once and you will be able to shape write the next time. Shape writing is many times more efficient than letter based handwriting recognition”
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I admit - I was a bit sceptical about how accurate this app would be, but boy was I in for a surprise! The accuracy is uncanny. It’s amazing what this app allows you to do and this is definitely a ground breaking development in mobile text input.
In my first attempts (shown below), I was able to type out longish sentences with ZERO errors. The trick is to slide your fingers over the keyboard at the right speed… not too fast. This was so much more comfortable on the fingers and eyes when compared to the normal touch-screen or hard QWERTY keyboards. In one of the screen-shots below, you can see my slide actions in a blue scribble to generate the word “amazing”
Features I loved -
1) After you’re done with the note, you can email it
2) You can even reply to emails by using WritingPad
3) You can add words to its impressive lexicon and it will remember the next time.
4) Intuitive auto-suggest feature
5) App is fast, responsive and stable
6) As of today, the app is 100% free!
If Apple brings in cut-paste in-between 3rd party apps in the next firmware version, this app would shine even more! I would definitely start typing out long blogs from the iPhone itself without too much effort.
Overall - Kudos to the developers!!
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October 2nd, 2008 at 11:20 am
will it ever be possible that this keyboard can be set as “use as default”
That would be really great. As of now not much use
October 2nd, 2008 at 6:44 pm
As of now it works fine for the email app. Yeah it would rock if this becomes a default text input option…