Charlie Stross on iPad Writing

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/12/why-i-dont-use-the-ipad-for-se.html#more

by dbfclark • 15 years ago

19 8 15 years ago

I recently got an android phone and I've been deeply impressed by Swype, which is an interesting idea. You put down your finger and move it over they keys you want to press without lifting it until the end of the word. The system then uses a lot of machine learning techniques to figure out what word you were going for. It works far better than I think it has any right to, and when typing english text i can now get pretty impressive speeds. I don't know about wpm, but I'd say it's pretty much the same speed that i can type with one hand on a normal physical keyboard.

I think this is one important area where Android is far ahead of (non-jailbroken) iOS.

bdhe• 15 years ago

I also recently purchased an Android phone and have been very impressed by the accuracy of Swype. However, I notice that in landscape mode, because of having to move through a larger region, input entry slows down significantly. I find myself always switching to portrait mode for text entry (with a 4.3'' screen phone).

I wonder what the experience is on tablets where non-swype entry becomes easier as the keyboard size increases (unlike, in my experience, what happens with swype).

pragmatic2• 15 years ago

Agree about swype.

But the difference between banging out text messages to friends and a full fledged serious writing environment are huge.

Text navigation (say you notice a mistyped or mis guessed word ) is terrible. My droid bionic does not have a physical optical joystick. Compared to my Droid Incredible, its a very painful process to fix up text.

Now imagine trying to write production code/copy on such a device.

qdog• 15 years ago

Swype is very cool when I have to use it on my wife's phone, probably with practice it isn't too bad, but I don't know if you could really do big text editing with it too well. It doesn't solve the cursor movement problems the author talks about (although all my android phones have a trackball type input, which works ok).

I still always opt for a phone with a physical keyboard, one of the reasons I can't imagine I'll ever own an iPhone. My wife recently got an iPad, it makes a great device for watching Netflix or playing Angry Birds from what I can tell. Everything else...not so sure. We bought an ipad case with a bluetooth keyboard, but it feels smaller than the keyboard on my netbook. Sure, you can get the full-size keyboard, but then you have 2 pieces.

Yes, you can do input and other things on the ipad, and some people are quite happy doing things the 'Apple' way. However, I note that once upon a time I was very happy editing code with the 'ex' mode of vim, because I had learned on a version of good ole 'ed'. I was perfectly happy using it for a good long time before learning more about vi, I'd say I'm a lot more productive and would never choose to go back.

Cieplak• 15 years ago

+1 for emacs mention

pragmatic2• 15 years ago

This criticism holds for Android devices also (including the Kindle Fire)

At least my old HTC Incredible had an optical joystick that made text navigation much easier.

Please device designers take note: FINGERS ARE NOT PRECISE ENOUGH FOR TEXT SELECTION!!!

at least adult male fingers...

funkah• 15 years ago

He's right about positioning the cursor. It currently sucks, really really badly.

sbmassey• 15 years ago

I wonder if vim would work on the iPad.

Charlie Stross on iPad Writing

Related Stories