They offer very good predictive text (including three words above the keyboard that the software thinks are the most likely you're about to type). Swype and SwiftKey: These may be the most famous alternate keyboards. Herewith: some capsule summaries of the different approaches.
You can have speed without much accuracy (dictation), you can have accuracy but not much speed (on-screen keyboards)-and sometimes you can have software assistance to get your typing done faster and more accurately (predictive-text keyboards).īoth Android phones and iPhones let you install alternate on-screen keyboards to replace the one that came with your set. In this month's Scientific American I took a big-picture look at all the different ways people have invented to input text on phones that don't have keyboards.