Do you have Swype on your phone?

[Runs_With_Scissors]

I’d love to read about your experiences with it.

http://www.swypeinc.com/tips-tricks.html

Here is a quotation from the NY Times’ David Pogue on what Swype is:

When you use Swype, you see what looks like a standard onscreen keyboard. But instead of tapping each letter, you’re supposed to leave your finger on the screen and drag through all the letters of the word you want.

For example, if you drag your finger right across the middle keyboard row, hitting all of the keys — ASDFGHJK — the software realizes that the only possible word you could have intended is “ask.”

[jamie6]

I dislike it. I use a HD2 and I find it much faster to use two thumbs and the standard keyboard than trying to draw a line all across the screen. Consider drawing a line to spell out something like ‘amen’ rather than just doing 4 really quick taps with two fingers.

The only advantage I see is that it’s much better if you are using your phone with one hand.

[Revtim]

I have it on my T-Mobile G1, and I like it a lot. It works well enough that I will consider getting a phone without a physical keyboard next time, if it can run Swype.

[born_too_late]

I have a new smartphone I use it with and I found it easy to get used to and easy to use. However, my last phone was just a basic phone with no keyboard at all - just a number pad - and I very rarely did any texting or typing of any kind. So I don’t have the prejudice of gotten used to a real keyboard.

One of the complaints I hear about the ‘soft’ keyboard is that the keys are too small for fingers. Swype seems to be well programmed to account for mis-typing - it has an auto-complete feature that works in tandem with a spell-check (which also increases your input speed). It’s customizable too, so if you don’t like the way the spell-check/auto-complete or anything else works, you can turn that particular feature off. Plus, on the Evo, at least, you can just turn the phone sideways to landscape orientation, and the keys are much bigger. Even if you don’t like the sweep technique, it still allows single keypress input as well.

[Tastes_of_Chocolate]

@jamie6

I dislike it. I use a HD2 and I find it much faster to use two thumbs and the standard keyboard than trying to draw a line all across the screen. Consider drawing a line to spell out something like ‘amen’ rather than just doing 4 really quick taps with two fingers.

In a case like “amen” where the letters are on different lines, do you drag your finger from the A, down to the M on the bottom row, to the E on the top row and then to the N?

Simply put, do you have to pass through the letters in order?

[Ximenean]

@Tastes_of_Chocolate

In a case like “amen” where the letters are on different lines, do you drag your finger from the A, down to the M on the bottom row, to the E on the top row and then to the N?

Simply put, do you have to pass through the letters in order?

Yes.

I have played with ShapeWriter, which is similar to Swype. Very promising, but corrections are awkward, and punctuation is fiddly. Swype may be better in those regards, I don’t know. With a bit of polish I think it could be a real alternative to traditional typing.

[Ximenean]

@jamie6

I dislike it. I use a HD2 and I find it much faster to use two thumbs and the standard keyboard than trying to draw a line all across the screen. Consider drawing a line to spell out something like ‘amen’ rather than just doing 4 really quick taps with two fingers.

The only advantage I see is that it’s much better if you are using your phone with one hand.

I don’t think it’s necessarily about speed. It’s more comfortable, because you don’t have all those repeated impacts on your fingertips. Swiping your finger around the screen is much more restful than jabbing at it. I would really like to try Swype on a bigger screen, like an iPad. I think that would work well, with bigger targets to swipe at.

[DoctorJ]

I have it on my Hero and love it. There’s a bit of a learning curve, both for you and for the program itself, but after a week or so with it I’d have a hard time going back.