I feel swipe to type should be an option on laptops. Using keys to type is slow compared to swiping across alphabets. Remove the physical keyboard and put a 6" to 10" lcd with touch input on it.
Not at all.
Honestly, if you think one finger swiping is faster and better than ten fingers on a keyboard I would suggest you spend some time leaning to type.
you know what’s funny? the qwerty layout for keyboards were designed to slow people down because mechanical typewritters couldn’t keep up with the typing speeds. It’s purposely slower, moving the most used keys out of the way.
One wonders why we haven’t created a new keyboard in all these years. maybe with the same physical layout so that it could just be a firm/software adjustment rather than physical.
Where did you get this non-sense?
The reason for the layout is to have letters that are commonly typed together on alternating hands as it is faster and also would prevent jamming in mechanical typewritters.
You guys are pretty much saying the same thing.
keyboards were designed to slow people down … moving the most used keys out of the way
- /u/FuglyDuck
would prevent jamming in mechanical typewritters
- /u/Kalash
I’m not sure why the hostility calling it non-sense. It’s common knowledge QWERTY was created because typewriters frequently jammed when you were quickly typing characters that were close to each other. By spacing out the letters, they effectively slowed down the typing speed and made the machine more reliable to use.
The reason for the layout is to have letters that are commonly typed together on alternating hands
This is a feature of Dvorak. QWERTY basically randomly places the most commonly used letters randomly across the keyboard.
You guys are pretty much saying the same thing.
We’re saying the opposite thing. It was designed for typing faster and prevent jamming, not for preventing jamming by being intentionally slow.
I’m not sure why the hostility calling it non-sense.
Well, it is non-sense. But I wasn’t aware it was like a proper common misconception.
Ok I see now we are arguing semantics.
Problem- people were having jams
Solution- space out most commonly used keys randomly so jams are less frequent
Consequences-
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In theory assuming a perfect machine and a skilled typist you type slower because you have to move your fingers more
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in practice you type faster because the jams were a much larger limiting factor than the key placement
So they slowed it down in order to speed it up. Both of you are saying the same thing.
But your conclusion is faulty and the speed increase doesn’t just come from less jamming (which is now irrelevant anyway), but direclty from spacing out the letters.
Typing consecutive letters next to each other often means you have to use the same finger and pressing multiple keys with the same finger is slower than using different fingers, as your “free” fingers can move into position in advance.
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One wonders why we haven’t created a new keyboard in all these years.
Oh they have. There are quite a few different layouts, apparently the Dovarak is the fastest.
But qwerty has been in use for so long it would be impossible to change.
As a former sysadmin who hopped around to different machines to do stuff, I would hate it when I had to type on some developers’ computers, because they had set it up as Dvorak (vi on Dvorak is a special hell). Yes, it’s a more efficient keyboard as long as that’s the only machine you’re on. If you have to use different machines where most of the users are on QWERTY, you just use QWERTY.
It’s not so hard to switch back and forth with modern operating systems.
DVORAK is a keyboard layout that you can enable via your OS and use with a QWERTY keyboard. It’s laid out with the most used keys on the homerow to reduce finger movement.
I’ve tried swapping to it a couple times. Problem is, you have to throw all of your established muscle memory in the trash to learn it. I kinda wish I’d learned it first in a sense, but QWERTY is so dominant that I’d be struggling anywhere I couldn’t change layouts.
You could have ten fingers on a keyboard plus some kind of assistance or auto-suggest too.
I’m not sure how well this would work but considering the ability of certain smartphones keyboard to learn your language pattern it could be useful to some.
Using keys to type is slow compared to swiping across alphabets
You’d have to be really bad at typing for that to be true.
No, complete opposite.
anything longer than a sentence is an absolute grind on the phone
Somebody, take away that person’s phone so that he/she won’t give new stupid ideas to tech giants
How old are you out of curiosity? I read somewhere that typing speed had steadily been increasing in the newer generations until somewhere around 1995-2000 and then afterwards typing speed started going down again.
I find it fascinating. I grew up playing World of Walmart and Runescape (and later on League of Legends when it came out) so typing quickly was sort of a necessary learned behavior. That along with being online all the time either through MySpace / AIM / MSN Messenger / reddit (later on Facebook)…
These days kids just don’t have access to the computer like my generation did. My dad would go to garage sales and impulsively buy old computers. I would take them apart and put them together. Would install a different distro of Linux every week. All from the age of 11~12
Didn’t know wtf I was doing but over time you learn.
I feel bad for kids these days. They’re not growing up with desktop PCs. They’re growing up with tablets and smartphones. They will always be used to these closed down operating systems and never truly understand the mechanics of how an OS works.
To answer your question - no. Typing on a keyboard is by far my favorite way to get down information. I can peak around 160wpm and average around 130wpm give or take 20wpm depending on density of text. I can’t get anywhere close on the phone. Peak around 90wpm average like 70wpm.
I grew up playing World of Walmart
Me too! Good memories. It was better before they nerfed the produce department though.
Tell us you don’t know how to type without telling us you don’t know how to type
I love swipe gestures on the phone and use it almost exclusively and I’m pretty fast with it… but in no world is it even close to the speed of a keyboard.
I touch type, so no
How slow do you type? Also Swype seems to get worse and worse every year. If I start on a character, you can be pretty sure I meant that character. Some of what it decides is fucking absurd
Swiping sucks, this is vow or loss when I swipe without namely correcting everything
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I think that Blackberry’s had the best physical keyboard of any phone past or present.
Blackberry was great. Just that damn track ball
It’s still to small to properly type on.
How can one finger be faster than 8? At least I use 8 + one of the thumbs to press the space button.
You assume the op knows how to use more than one finger to type.
Even with one finger ,it should be faster
I don’t properly touch type. I have pretty good muscle memory for a standard qwerty, but typing is still very much a hand-eye coordination exercise for me. I can do the standard transcription typing tests at about 50 wpm, and compose or type from memory at maybe 70ish. I don’t hate swiping, and it’s much better than thumb-mushing for polysyllabic words, but I’m nowhere close to even my modest typing speeds on a proper keyboard.
No, could never get used to the Swype thing. My fat fingers constantly mispell thank god for autocorrect. If they ever come out with a blackberry like smartphone with physical keys I am all for it. Doesn’t help that I’ve been a PC guy my whole life and know the QWERTY keyboard like the back of my hand. I somehow have even developed my own typing technique that beats home-rowers in speed.
I’d like to see the average user on a Swipe keyboard beat me typing on a real computer keyboard.
Interested in friendly competiton? Take the typing test and compare your results!
Typing Test: https://www.typingtest.com/
My Results:
Test Type: Medium
Two baselines performed, third test is the result.
Words Per Minute: 120 wpm net speed (123 wpm x 97% accuracy = 120 wpm)
Screenshot of results: https://i.postimg.cc/VNCJT1nX/artifact.png
Edit to Add:
I selected “Medium” because that seemed like just enough difficulty and word variety compared to the “Hard” mode. Most average users should not be typing text with much more complexity often, so Medium seems best.
Some of the skill might be transferrable. My sister has been on iPhone for years and gets 120 wpm on monkeytype with predictive text on. For comparison, she gets 110 on a normal chiclet keyboard.
No, and if I have to get some real writing done on my phone I connect the BT keyboard I’ve been using since 2011
Swiping is nice and all, even though you rarely write a whole sentence without it getting a word wrong and what you wrote not even being a suggestion, but it’s nowhere near the speed of typing.
Unless you’re doing that only with your thumb as well?
