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| A niche use case for on-screen keyboards |
| By Thom Holwerda on 2012-10-25 14:52:26 |
| When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone, one of its most prominent and most controversial features was the on-screen keyboard. In as world dominated by devices with physical keyboards, it was seen as a joke, something that could never work. We know better by now, of course, but while I still prefer the physical feel and clicks of a real keyboard, a recent new endeavour of mine has made me appreciate the on-screen keyboard in a whole new way. |
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| On-screen keyboards |
| By Luke McCarthy on 2012-10-25 20:29:30 |
| I was never much of a fan at first, but since I got my Nexus 7 I found I can type really fast on it. And it's certainly better to have an on-screen QWERTY on a phone than a numeric pad (which takes forever to type on). |
 - Score: 1 |
| RE: Not only that.. |
| By StephenBeDoper on 2012-10-25 20:39:53 |
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> In fact, what I feel it becomes "killer" with virtual keyboards is how they can easily adapt to the task at hand. Simple stuff as changing the keyboard layout when typing email addresses (making @ easily reachable, for example) or removing the space bar when typing url addresses and having a handy ".com". I have mixed feelings about the ".com" button. On one hand, I think it's a clever idea and (as you pointed out) one of the chief advantages of having a keyboard implemented in software. But on the other hand, it doesn't take into account that there are many places where ".com" isn't the most commonly-used TLD. And yes, I know that most virtual keyboards let you tap-and-hold to get the net, org, and edu TLDs - but none of the virtual keyboards I've used have a .ca option. Being in Canada, most of domains I type in (either in URLs or EMail addresses) use the .ca TLD - making the ".com" key largely useless, at least for me. |
| - Score: 4 |
| Swype |
| By shadowhand on 2012-10-25 22:19:04 |
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I too, used to hate the idea of non-physical keyboard. After I got my Nexus, I discovered Swype and now I can't imagine trying to use a phone with a physical keyboard. Edited 2012-10-25 22:24 UTC |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE: Not only that.. |
| By Doc Pain on 2012-10-25 22:57:15 |
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> In fact, what I feel it becomes "killer" with virtual keyboards is how they can easily adapt to the task at hand. Simple stuff as changing the keyboard layout when typing email addresses (making @ easily reachable, for example) or removing the space bar when typing url addresses and having a handy ".com". It is a pity that people are not expanding this capability further. The "problem" with keyboards having a different layout than the typical typewriter-like keyboard you find infront of PCs is that typists have learned certain "motor programs" to transform thoughts into keystrokes. There is no visual discovery or even confirmation involved in what the hands do. That makes this approach fast. The QWERT(Z/Y) layout may be suboptimal, but it is established in a way that most keyboards have a layout comparable to the "standard EN/US layout" that makes nearly any keyboard quickly usable. The idea is: "It works the same everywhere." Dynamically programmable buttons, or "keys changing function according to current context" is nothing new. It's what PF keys (programmable function keys, the 12 or 24 on top) have initially been designed for. Of course the information what they will do is not provided on the keys theirselves - it would be useless as no typist looks at them. Instead this information is presented on the screen. With the "blurring of concepts" of what is input and what is output on tablets and smartphones, there is the chance to re-invent the PF keys, but not just regarding "key captions", but also location and look. This can be an advantage if properly used, like removing keys that would generate invalid input for a certain task (like space bar for entering URIs, as you've mentioned). This is already done in several ways. As there is no tactile feedback on tablets, you don't have to deal with the "mechanical aspects" of keyboards and how it is important to typists. So the way is free to try new ideas. An interesting "in-between" approach can be seen in the Optimus Keyboard: http://www.artlebedev.com/everyt... http://thefutureofthings.com/upl... (the older version having a better layout) Anyway, no typist looks at the keyboard. Those people around the typist look at it, and envy him for having such cool hardware. :-) |
| - Score: 2 |
| Japanese |
| By henderson101 on 2012-10-25 23:09:36 |
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Japanese isn't actually hard to type. Japanese uses a syllabary alphabet to represent the language - every word can be written in Hiragana. But the issue is that Japanese traditionally uses Kanji (Chinese based) for most words, and also Katakana (another syllabary) for loan words. However, a Japanese friend of mine assured me that writing in Hiragana, whilst sometime hard to understand straight away, is not impossible. A lot of kids seem also to use Hiragana to coin new words. ありがとう => arigatou => a-ri-ga-to-u => あ - り - が - と - う 猫 => neko => ne-ko => ね - こ Once you understand that all Japanese words are made up of combinations of a limited set of vowels, consonant-vowels and "n", and that a Japanese virtual keyboard can be set to accept Roman letters, typing becomes a breeze. Coupled with the ability to use the Kanji picker, should you be that advanced, typing Japanese is actually dead simple. Korean does rule though. A school friend and I devised a code based on Hangul that we used for years. I can still half read Korean text if I try, though some letters mean slightly different things to our "code". The thing you'll find with Korean and Korean grammar is that is is very similar in structure to Japanese. There is no proven direct link between the two, but the grammar is eerily similar. right down to particles of speech and word order. But Korean can be a lot more complex with regards to phonetics and particles. Oh, and whilst it seems quite dead in the South, North Korea still keeps Hanja alive and well - i.e. Korean Kanji! |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE[2]: Are you really thanking Apple for this? |
| By viton on 2012-10-25 23:28:35 |
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> Use of such keyboards was already well established on PDAs, tablets, slot machines, ATMs, etc. I still feel the pain of crappy tiny on-screen keyboard in my Loox 420 PDA designed for idiotic stylus. Everything was so tiny and COMPLETELY UNUSABLE that I frequently thought of stabbing these idiots in the faces with their stylus. The screen was the same size as iPhone. iPhone made it usable with fingers. |
| - Score: 2 |
| Multiple languages input & system locale |
| By wekncdr on 2012-10-26 01:19:58 |
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I'm so glad to see that you have pointed out smartphones' multiple input languages as a tool for learning foreign languages! The on-screen keyboard is very useful indeed. I must also highlight one important feature - built-in support for multiple system locales. Let's take an Apple device as an example here, from a neutral perspective. No matter which part in the world that I purchase an i-device, I will get the same number of languages support. I can switch my system locale to any language that I want, and I can enable any on-screen language keyboard that I want. Similarly, Android devices also support all languages. But there are some differences. In terms of input methods, anyone is free to install any languages that they want, so they get to customize their devices. In terms of system locales, the situation is very different from an i-device. Manufacturers scale down the number of system locale languages depending on which region in the world that they sell the device. It seems to me that they decide the bare minimum number of supported system locales that the users in a particular region would ever want to use as the default language in their devices. As a person who is learning a foreign language reaches higher levels, she may decide to try using the foreign language as the default system locale, not just being able to input that language. She may do so for fun, for learning purposes, for any reasons. Depending on which brand of Android device she buys, she may or may not be able to set the system locale to a language that she wants, simply because that language is not built-in. As a layman, she may not know of an easy method to install system locales. Let's take another example - Nokia Symbian feature- & smart- phones. Suppose I purchase a Nokia device from an English speaking country in Europe, I am likely to just be able to use English as the default language and nothing else. It seems that Nokia assumes that I only want to use English as the system language and not some other foreign languages. I am not sure how many people out there share the same experiences as me. Hopefully, I am not the only one. Edited 2012-10-26 01:20 UTC |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE[2]: Not only that.. |
| By HappyGod on 2012-10-26 04:35:41 |
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This is a particular bug-bear of mine. Although the default iOS keyboard does let you hold the .com key to get the .au suffix that I need, why can't I configure it so that I get '.com.au' by default. Very annoying. The cynic in me guesses that setting the caption of the button to '.com.au' would take up to much space, and they couldn't be bothered reformatting the keyboard to accommodate it! |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE: What about Turkish? |
| By jal_ on 2012-10-26 09:00:06 |
| Though the Turkish languages are cool, Altaic is of course highly controversial as a family, and there is no similarity at all between Turkish and Korean. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[2]: What about Turkish? |
| By earksiinni on 2012-10-26 09:07:15 |
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I will defer to your wisdom on this, but while Altaic is controversial my understanding is that the real controversy is over the so-called "Ural-Altaic" formation, which supposedly would bring in Finnish and Hungarian, as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ura... My point was more that there are major non-Indo-European languages in Europe...or close to Europe, depending on who's counting. |
| - Score: 2 |
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