Holiday reflections

Posted by Paul Korm
Dec 29, 2014 at 02:56 PM

As a solution to the iPad keyboard problem I’ve been gaining proficiency with Nuance’s Swype keyboard. iOS 8 supports custom keyboards, and Swype has been ported to iOS—many smartphones have supported the feature for years. It appears as a standard keyboard, and can be used that way, but its main feature is text entry by swiping one finger around the keyboard. The software interprets the gestures and is fairly accurate with interpeting the gesture and entering the text. So, if I swipe my finger from t to e to x to t I’ll get “text”. The Swype keyboard adapts itself to your vocabulary and gesture “style” and improves with use.

See swype.com for info.

The learning curve is not steep—regular use is recommended to maintain proficiency—if you relax and ignore the impulse to “type” there is a good flow. I wouldn’t use Swype to write a novel, but emails, long notes, etc. are pretty simple. For some reason, Swype doesn’t not work well with web page forms.