And now I must speak of Swype

[darkemeralds]

vampirefan emailed me yesterday as follows:

http://www.swypeinc.com/ ... damn. it's not available for my phone!!!

I had never heard of Swype. Where the hell have I been? I went to the link, got that "I WANT!" gleam in my eye, and proceeded immediately to my phone-geek go-to site, XDA Developers, and acquired Swype for my particular phone.

It is AWESOME! In case I'm not the last person on Planet Geek to have heard of it, Swype provides an onscreen keyboard that lets you drag your finger from key to key to spell out words. Swype does all the guesswork, and it's incredibly accurate. I can't stop playing with it.



You don't believe it will work, and it just does.

My hardware keyboard had begun to fail (grrr SonyEricsson) and it was a big part of my dissatisfaction with what's still a relatively new phone. Between Swype and an updated ROM, I've brought this expensive little sucker back to life.

Swype was developed for Windows Mobile, apparently, and is now being deployed for Android.

Comments

[writerscramp]

Our phones have Swype installed automatically but last week was the first time I got around to trying it. AND I LOVE IT OMG. I now spend time trying to think of people to text just so I can use it. I'm emailing huge emails from my phone now. I love it so much there are no words of measurement to accurately say how much.

[darkemeralds]

Yes! Yes! I'm texting the whole wide world because it's so cool and fun to use. And have you seen the tutorial videos? All about punctuation and speed-Swyping and stuff?

It's been a long time since I was so thrilled and impressed with a piece of software, and the minute they make it legally available for whatever phone I have, I shall legally buy a legal copy and in the meantime I'm a happy piratical Swype-pimp.

The whole hardware keyboard thing is SO LAST YEAR now, am I right?

[writerscramp]

Totally. I was already over the hardware keyboard after about an hour of playing with my Droid, but once I turned on Swype? I was all, "WHY DON'T ALL COMPUTERS DO THIS I LOVE IT FOREVER." I don't know if I've seen the tutorial videos you're talking about, but the Droid has a cool tutorial thingy integrated with the Swype feature that's part of the keyboard, and does the demonstration directly on the keyboard, and then you do what it showed you to see how it all works. And it explains all the stuff about punctuation, double letters, etc. Also -- and I don't know if this is specific to Droid X or if it's something that Swype does, but it's all integrated into the contacts and browser and everything, so if, say, you're in the browser URL field, it's set not to automatically put in spaces and to predict URLs (vs. regular words), whereas if you're typing in a contact field, it's predicting from your contacts. I LOVE LIVING IN THE FUTURE SO MUCH.

[darkemeralds]

Oooh, the, um, acquired copy I've got on WinMo doesn't do the URL thing as far as I can tell, or any integration with contacts, nor does it have any other language besides English (I just found out) but still. I'm standing here with thirty bucks and am so ready to plunk it down for the legit thing.

I hear the next batch of HTC Android phones may be shipped with Android 3.0--which, I don't know what the nickname is but maybe Mint Chocolate Chip Baked Alaska or whatever the hell--and I would think by then Swype Deluxe-o-rama will be cooked right into the operating system.

The future is fun!

[writerscramp]

Now I want an OS called Mint Chocolate Chip Baked Alaska. And a dessert.

[darkemeralds]

And also? Once I started Swyping, I went back to my computer keyboard--the big one--and thought, this is un-slick. We should have big Swyping for full sized computers. At least as an option.

[lamentables]

*looks at website*
*is excited*
*googles 'swype for iphone'*
*is disappointed*

[darkemeralds]

Oh, bummer. I figured iPhone must have something just like it already. It has some Apple-esque characteristics of coolness and ease of use that I'm just not used to in the WinMo environment.

[lamentables]

I have found ShapeWriter which does the same thing in terms of using the keyboard - and I really like the mode - but the Pro version is unavailable/withdrawn and you can't copy-pasta into other apps.

[darkemeralds]

Copied pasta just doesn't taste as good anyway.