Touchscreens have never been the first choice of people who do a lot of typing on their phones. After all, can the tiny keys on a touchscreen phone ever provide the speed, accuracy and ease of a physical keyboard?
Even though touchscreen keyboards can never replace real physical keyboards, we’ve compiled a list applications that will ensure that the days of slow, inaccurate typing on touchscreen phones are gone. These free applications for your android device will raise your typing experience to a whole new level.
Swype
Swype is becoming an immensely popular interface for typing and it claims that users can attain over 40 words per minute with its innovative style of input. The keyboard is a standard QWERTY layout. To enter a word all you have to do is put your finger on the first letter of the word and then slide it forming a path from letter to letter and lift up your finger after the last letter is reached.
Take a look at the path formed to enter the word “quick” :
Swype comes bundled with some phones. For those who don’t have it, you can download it from the official website. There is another popular alternative SlideIT Soft Keyboard for this form of input and can be downloaded from the Android Market for free.
Tio Keyboard
If you are someone who likes the comfort of a QWERTY layout and the ease of large keys, then Tio keyboard is for you. While a regular keyboard has about 30 keys, Top keyboard has only 10 keys. Less number of keys means larger keys and of course less finger movement which results in faster typing.
Learning the Tio keyboard is also very easy as it uses simplified form of the QWERTY layout. Each key is composed of 3 characters according to the vertical layout of a QWERTY keyboard.
Tio keyboard not only helps in faster typing but also gives more screen space for your text. All in all, Tio can be thought of as the QWERTY version of the famous T9 format which we all have used at some point of time.
Download Tio from the Android Market for free.
Siine
Siine is a very different way of typing and it claims to be the first icon based keyboard. The keyboard layout is the standard QWERTY form and typing is done in the regular tap to enter format. But, along with the regular keyboard comes icons – for almost everything.
You just need to hit the icon to enter the corresponding word or phrase. Be it the current time, name of month or a call me later message Siine has icons for almost all commonly used terms. And if you have your own special way of calling your friend a “Duuude”, you can add an icon for that too.
This icon based style of writing is surely fast, and can be a bliss of people who tend to use a few common terms more frequently. Download Siine from the Android market for free.
Tip : If you often change the keyboard layout on your Android phone, then going over a number of steps to do the same can be frustrating at times. A desktop widget called Switch Keys can let you choose your keyboard with 1 click from the home screen itself. Which keyboard layout do you use for your typing needs? Do let us know through your comments.
Gourav Mittal is a Computer Science Engineer who loves to blog in his free time. He blogs primarily at Techrav and also maintains Sanjay Tea Company
|
