The qwerty keyboard was designed to prevent the jamming of metallic parts of a typewriter. Surely it's time to put this metaphor behind us? People have migrated easily from typewriters to computer keyboards, and from pianos to synthesizers (depending on the synthesizer) but neither metaphor works effectively for a touch screen. A touch screen is unable to provide the necessary physical feedback to let the instrument 'flow'. Even using the finger as a cursor doesn't work anywhere near as well as a mouse or a stylus when editing text.
Touch devices require a breakthrough in text input if they are ever to become useful for creative output of large chunks of text. We all learned to SMS using a 12 button mobile phone pad in the '90s, people have spent months and years learning vim and emacs (despite their lack of intuitivity, consistency and metaphor), why can't we get away from qwerty keyboards today?
I don't have any suggestions, but people must be coming up with better non-qwerty ideas all the time. Where are they?
Touch devices require a breakthrough in text input if they are ever to become useful for creative output of large chunks of text. We all learned to SMS using a 12 button mobile phone pad in the '90s, people have spent months and years learning vim and emacs (despite their lack of intuitivity, consistency and metaphor), why can't we get away from qwerty keyboards today?
I don't have any suggestions, but people must be coming up with better non-qwerty ideas all the time. Where are they?