Swipe to Type
Apple's right to be looking for an interface that doesn't require the close attention their current touch-to-do interface requires. And they're right to suspect the answer might lie in a creative use of swiping rather than touching. You can only put so much detail on a pocket-sized screen.
Heres an alternate text input technique for the iPhone and similar devices that should be faster and more accurate for many people. It uses a feature the iPhone already has, a multi-touch screen, rather than external hardware such as a collapsible Bluetooth keyboard. You not only dont have to look at the screen, with a little practice you can enter text in the dark even while bouncing around, as on a bus or subway. And since the only requirements for text input are basic hand coordination and a sense of touch, it makes the iPhone much more usable for the visually impaired and those with limited hand-eye coordination.
What is it?
* It uses a well-established open source standardInternational Morse Code. But instead of short and long key presses, dots are input by short swipes and dashes by long swipes.
* Speed of input doesn't matter. Unlike regular Morse, which assumes a pause in sending to be a break between letters, user input can be as slow or fast as the users wants without error. Letters are distinguished by alternating swiping right/left and then up/down. (A user-set delay inputs the last character, i.e. one not followed by a swipe in a different direction.)
* Swipe mode changes when the user rotates the screen.
* Because Morse Code is already optimized for fast input in most languages, text can be entered very fast. The more often a letter is used, the shorter its Morse Code equivalent is. An e is a single short swipe and a T is a single long swipe. It couldn't be easier.
Additional Features
Morse input would also take advantage of a touch screens flexibility to add features that International Morse Code doesnt have. Examples include:
* Lowercase letters are made by swiping left-to-right or up-to-down.
* Uppercase letters are made by swiping right-to-left or down-to-up. Alternately, two-finger swipes could be used for uppercase.
* Common punctuation uses diagonal swipes, i.e. upper-left to lower-right for a space, lower-left to upper-right for a period or a period plus space. Diagonal swipes with two or three fingers could have other meanings.
* Circling CCW might delete the previous character. Circling CW might enter a Return. Alternately, a short shake of the iPhone deletes the previous letter, while a longer shake deletes the previous word.
* Because text input is always a swipe that doesn't need for anything to be displayed for it to work, the entire screen is free for other uses, either display or touching without swiping. It can be used to display the text being entered, to have buttons for commands, or to show a chart for those just learning Morse. This makes maximum use of scarce screen space.
* Certain easy-to-make touches could be used to make common commands easy to do. Touching the keyboard with another finger, perhaps the thumb in the lower-left corner for right-handed people, might signify something. For instance, it might bring up a scrolling list of long, user-set text strings (i.e. a phone number or address) from which the user could select. Inside applications, it could be used for something important. Inside an email program, for instance, it could send the just-entered email. Inside a writing program, it could be used to start a new paragraph.
* In learner mode, the screen would display the Morse alphabet and text input would be on a scrolling line. Letters or words could be spoken as typed to speed up learning and accuracy.
For those willing to learn Morse, which is far easier than most people think (especially for sending), it offers a fast, virtually error-free text interface for the iPhone, one that has tactile feedback built into the design. Most important of all, its a text input technique that doesnt require users to constantly look at the screen. Since the target is the entire screen, its impossible to miss and the touch of the screen provides the tactile feedback lacking in the on-screen keyboard.
This idea isn't just for Apple. If you like it, feel free to develop it yourself.
But I like this idea a lot.
