I've been using the Swype keyboard on my Android Incredible for the past few days and I've found it pretty great to use.
When I first read about Swype I was a little skeptical - how much faster could it really be / would it actually be useful for people used to regular typing?
I've found, however, that Swype is useful for more than just typing quickly (which it does quite well albeit with a learning curve). It's also fun :) And it also is much more efficient when a user prefers one handed, vertical-oriented typing (like I do). In order to type quickly on a normal touch keyboard, the most optimal position for me was the horizontal position, using both thumbs. In reality, however, I hardly ever turned the phone this way, it was one extra step and it required a bit more "commitment" to the typing process :). Plus, it sometimes hid some important fields on the screen itself. This meant that I would always type on the vertical orientation, which meant that I would often accidentally tap letters since the letters were so small and close together.
Swype actually works best in the vertical orientation, with one hand. And it benefits from all the letters being small and close together.
David Pogue at the NYTimes recently wasn't really sold on Swype (and I agree with some of what he has to say), but I also feel like he was only taking speed into account - he wasn't taking into account the other slight ux issues that the normal keyboard has.
When I first read about Swype I was a little skeptical - how much faster could it really be / would it actually be useful for people used to regular typing?
I've found, however, that Swype is useful for more than just typing quickly (which it does quite well albeit with a learning curve). It's also fun :) And it also is much more efficient when a user prefers one handed, vertical-oriented typing (like I do). In order to type quickly on a normal touch keyboard, the most optimal position for me was the horizontal position, using both thumbs. In reality, however, I hardly ever turned the phone this way, it was one extra step and it required a bit more "commitment" to the typing process :). Plus, it sometimes hid some important fields on the screen itself. This meant that I would always type on the vertical orientation, which meant that I would often accidentally tap letters since the letters were so small and close together.
Swype actually works best in the vertical orientation, with one hand. And it benefits from all the letters being small and close together.
David Pogue at the NYTimes recently wasn't really sold on Swype (and I agree with some of what he has to say), but I also feel like he was only taking speed into account - he wasn't taking into account the other slight ux issues that the normal keyboard has.