So, for my first Android update I want to talk about the keyboard and then specifically the TouchPal keyboard
As you can see, I’m writing this using it right now. But even before that, let’s look at different keyboard types in general:
Standard
Here we’re talking about your normal keyboard which most likely has a dictionary built in which you should be able to use by enabling or disabling auto-complete.
Intelligent
When we say an intelligent keyboard, we want to see some kind of artificial intelligence at work. In the best cases the keyboard learns how you chat and can eventually, from a few words or even letters, guess what you want to say.
Swipe
Swipe keyboards are of course only on touch screen phones but like auto-correct back in the 6310 days, has the ability to revolutionise the way you write on your device.
For all the features, including many items from special effects and skins to changing the actual keypad type and voice recognition, I suggest checking the store page. And so, I’m not going to go into a massive multi-page review (though I’ve definitely done enough testing between free options and trial versions) so let’s skip to the closing paragraph of said fictitious and pretend it was just a tl;dr moment we passed 😉
So in conclusion: The standard keyboards are really just boring now and only there for those famous iPhone moments. All the intelligent keyboards that I managed to test (such as those with trials as the best are generally not the cheapest apps) either did not have any swipe functionality or didn’t really graft with the intelligence anyway. And of all the swipe keyboards, TouchPal seem to have the most stable and relatively smartest option available, including some intelligent correcting, though in no way comparable with AI keyboards… It also ended up faster to swipe than using AI or auto-correct, particularly with the TouchPal keyboard’s ability to ‘guess’ which key you where going for, even if you didn’t swipe directly over it (something the built in Android keyboard’s swipe option fails at.)
So, that’s my 2 cents… or so. I’ve been happy with TouchPal since I ran all the tests (HTC Desire HD days) and haven’t looked back since!
Just for the record, I tested this on the HTC Desire HD and I am now enjoying it on my HTC Sensation
Thank you for the comment and I agree completely… Other than being remarkably lax lately, some posts were far too much a placeholder for myself than something one would actually hope would be useful to others.
For interest sake though, what type were you more interested in? The more technical, or just the more professional posts in general? I have decided it is time to actually try to supplement my life through my tech skill and so moving my blog to my own server is a definite step toward a proper commitment to it and it’s always good to get some feedback.