You may or may not yet be aware of the Swype virtual keyboard (comes
preloaded on the Cliq XT from Motorola), but you'll definitely be hearing about the T9 Trace from
Nuance. This is because, although it's fundamentally the same thing as Swype (but from a different maker), the T9 Trace is on offer from the company behind the
T9 predictive text dictionary that pretty much everyone from your 7-year old nephew to your octogenarian grandpa has used. The big idea here is that you trace out the word on your virtual keyboard without lifting your finger off, with short stops at each letter you want to add being taken for input. Once you get over the seemingly unintuitive idea of abandoning those woodpecker taps for the grace of tracing, it promises to be a real fun and rapid way to input text. Nuance has bundled the whole thing with error correction, word prediction and auto-completion, while supporting 70 languages. The company has yet to tell us when the T9 Trace will be showing up on phones (touchscreens only, for obvious reasons), but you can check out video of the competing Swype implementation after the break.
posted March 24th 2010 10:49AM
idk about this sounds kinda of stupid
@gustav213 Just seems like this would take longer than typing, Ive gotten pretty fast at texting so not sure, seems cool though, if it works like the intro video.
@gustav213 It's faster if you know what you are doing and might also have less fatigue, but that's just pure speculation by me. Fastest text in history was broken with this software by a bigger margin than a Usain Bolt victory.
@juanvaldez Yeah but still weird, especially since i feel like it be hard to type with one hand, and have to use an index finger, idk would have to try it out.
@gustav213 It looks like quite a clever solution imho. Perhaps not something you would like, but if we had a choice which input method we used, that'd be nice.
How about Graffiti?
@gustav213 Try it out, this tech is great for fast one-handed typing, still lets you type character by character if you want, and is incredibly intuitive (compared to say, TikiText or traditional 0-9 texting) to teach. Anyone who can touch-type can use this within seconds. This should be a standard option on all phones in my opinion.
That said, I'm a fan of the Shapewriter implementation over Swype.
@gustav213
There is an app on the iPhone that does same and yes you are all quite right, it's slower and there is a wee issue if you need to do the same letter twice.
Can't tell u it's name, I deleted in quicker than I swiped a word
@gustav213
Ive actually been looking forward for this tech to get introduced to all phones after I first saw its revealed...Looks really promising
BTW, What song is that?!?
@gustav213 I've used swype. Alls I can say is that is makes typing so much easier on a phone. You can do everything one handed and its prediction is amazing. I rarely have to even look at my phone while using swype. However my trial subscription just expired and I've had to go back to normal typing. .....it sucks :(
@gustav213 I was using a leaked beta of swype on my Droid and it is now expired and I feel the loss. Swype was an amazing keyboard replacement- give it a few days it become very fast and easy to use.
@abedinthehouse Song is Independence Day by DoKashiteru [ http://ccmixter.org/files/DoKashiteru/21426 ]
@jfortun Yeah cant wait to try it out now, I am probably switching to Spring in the summer so I can use the new Evo 4G hopefully swype would be out by then.
@Cy Starkman There are many types of keyboards that let you draw a line through letters like this. The difference being with Swype and I assume this T9 one is the super effective error correction and word prediction that the others don't have. You can totally miss letters or go way off of the word path for a second and remarkably it still often knows what you were trying to type. Double letters are also as easy as doing a little loop or squiggle over the key, but often enough it will even give you the right word if you don't. This is what allows you to go super fast.
None of the other line writing keyboards I've tried do this. You have always needed to be super accurate which is slow and annoying.
@gustav213
Just for the record, build 5612 doesn't have the trial limitations and can be found pretty easily.
@gustav213
I've been using swype for a few months and it's amazingly fast. The biggest thing is generally people do not take the time to go through a tutorial and then cast it off as a failure, when in reality you are using something that is trying to shift a paradigm...it will take a little practice to get use to (for me it took one day of use and I can type just as fast on sywpe as I can on my desktop/laptop keyboard, no joke)
Also, these keyboards still take in hunt and peck style typing which is obviously needed for passwords, numerical entry, etc...
@eNonsense
thanks for the detail, I await the possibility. It is nice to see a bit of innovation.
Nothing to do wit touchscreens but certainly with keyboard innovation.. Have you seen the kyb that uses two discs that you just rest your hands on and move in combos? Saw it some years ago
@Cy Starkman
It's called the orbitouch. www.keybowl.com
I always thought it would be the ultimate fps keyboard as a sideline.
@gustav213 I hate to reply to the first comment, but this "record" is clearly missing something. I just tried this on my iPhone and did it in 34 seconds after 2 minutes of practice. I'm definitely not the fastest ever. This has got to be for one handed entry or something.
@gustav213
Shes hot and her boobs are huge.
@juanvaldez It doesn't matter if you know what you're doing or not, dragging your finger over a screen is slower than hovering over it and if you use multiple fingers on the keyboard then you can pretty much press multiple keys within a fraction of a second of each other without smudgin' up the display.
There's also no delay when you finish a word and you can see a word as you type. Good luck remembering what letter you're on as you type even mid-sized words like Engadget by following your draw-line in reverse. It's not like they can even add in a feature to do that because it can't distinguish between putty or point until you've finished the word or let go in which case you're back to tapping anyway.
It's another gimmick that's not needed and won't improve anything but it will be marketed to hell just like the rest of the dumb ideas. I like how there's a stereotypical free-thinking, chewing-gum chewing, mildly punk-style but not enough to scare you away girl used to promote it.
Hey you have bleach blonde hair, a stud in your lip, a t-shirt with writing on it and is that gum you're chewing? Wow, you must be a free-thinker, let's see what you're selling. A texting gesture. Ooh, a young free-thinker showing us new ways to text, that's cooooool. NOT!
I'd probably still take a Swype at her though. *starts dragging* nip, nip, clit, belly, nip, clit, bum, nip, bum, clit *waits for her to figure out that means orgasm*
*receives no guesses found error wtf*
@TinWard
Let me guess, you typed this from your iphone and there is nothing better than an iphone out right now huh?
@TinWard
You don't get out much...or laid much do you?
Looks cool, but old idea done bad. I made an app for this kind of input back in 1997 for my Wacom. It worked like a charm and was even better, as I let go the stupid Qwerty layout and put the most used letters in the center.
@daguila29 Swype sucks on the iPhone too.
@blanka That makes more sense. If you rearrange the keys so that most used are central then it would be an improvement over Swype on Qwerty.
But still, the word doesn't show up until you've finished typing. You guys are saying this is better than seeing every letter as you go so you can correct a mistake?
what if you're typing with two thumbs? Color me skeptical, but curious.
@TomSawyer two thumbs is overrated, one thumb is the wave of the future, actually forget thumbs lets go to index fingers lol
A guy just broke the texting record, this week IIRC, by like 8+ seconds using this on the Samsung OMNIA.
@juanvaldez "
The new Guinness World Record for texting was set at 35.54 seconds by an Omnia II phone user in New York, Samsung said in a release.
The user texted the Guinness-designated phrase: “The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human.”
The user in that case typed the same 160-letter, 26-word phrase in 41.4 seconds.
The software lets users input letters on a touch screen by swiping their finger across a keypad..."
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2918246
@juanvaldez There absolutely has to be something missing from that. I just tried typing that on my iPhone and did it in 34 seconds after 2 minutes of practice. That record has got to be for one handed entry or something. I'm what I would call very fast, but I'm definitely not the fastest.
@juanvaldez
How do we know that the predictive typing doesn't have this phrase in its database? I could probably draw a circle on the keyboard and get the whole phrase in under 1 second ;-)
@Photon It doesn't seem like it's for one-handed entry either, because in the videos I've seen of the new fastest texter he's still using his second hand to hold the phone while he swipes with his index, which sort of defeats the purpose of entering specifically with one hand. If they're really counting "one-finger" as "one-handed" that seems pretty stupid.
@juanvaldez Yeah I just watched a Samsung commercial showing this off along with the Guinness World Record announcement. First thing I thought was Swype as well.
It's all in the software. Could be interesting, the software predicticality will make or break it.
Just tried this out on my co-worker's HTC Eris, pretty sweet and very accurate. I could definitely see this catching on.
webOS version pretty please =)
If you can get passed the learning curve, I've heard its great. I have friends who swear by it. I just couldn't get used to it.
This product is amazing... and its also been available for years already on the iphone. The app is called "shapewriter".
I hope they are some how involved in this T9 business or I smell a nice legal battle brewing.
And what about double letters? How would one correctly swype "hello" for example?
@shiggypoo You linger on the l that little bit longer. It works.
@shiggypoo
For "Hello" It would automatically put in the extra L. However if you want to put in double letters all you do is wiggle your finger on the letter.
@Vlad Savov
That may work as well, but as insky said, the proper way to input double-letters is by making a loop or squiggle on the word.
So the concept of the ouja board is now how we will text. Sounds fun.
@kjb434 You're the one who always cheated when it came time to break out the board! Those things are supposed to control themselves DAMMIT!
And I can download this...where?
@henkvandervelden
Officially? Swype has a closed beta out right now that you need to have previously registered for. Unofficially? Google.
@o29 Aah I thought this was a separate app :)
@henkvandervelden
Oh, if you were referring to T9 Trace then it probably won't be available for a while. Swype is the best implementation at the moment.
On screen keyboards are for CHUMPS!
"that is like witchcraft" NOOBS!
I think this is ingenious. Using 2 thumbs to simultaneously swipe letters could be SO fast if it worked right after some practice. I'm excited. Its like the cursive of texting! (minus the hard to read part, lol)
@DooMskis Sounds about as useful as the dual trackpad that engadget covered at CES. /S
won't they get sued out their ass for blatantly copying swype?