Have you ever heard about MessagEase, the extremely fast and efficient text-entry method for small devices? Probably not, even though it’s been around for a long time. And why not? I firmly believe that it’s because of the learning curve — it takes at least a few hours of practice to see any real speed improvement over whatever method you’re using now.
It’s ridiculous, because if you enter any significant amount of text in a device, MessagEase will save you lots of time in the long run. But most people would apparently prefer to limp along on what they already know than invest a little time in learning something that’s superior in every way.
Once the iPhone version of it becomes available (it’s supposed to go into beta before the end of this month), I’m sure more people will be exposed to it. We’ll have to see how many of them adopt it.
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The picture of the text entry system I saw on their website looks very unuser friendly alright. Scary stuff. 🙂
“Different” doesn’t automatically mean “scary.” Give it a try, once it’s available for the iPhone. I’ve used it on my Palm handhelds for years, and it’s great.
I’m not sure if I enter text enough on my iPod touch to warrant it, my handheld e-mail and PDA functionality is currently via a Palm Centro. (My Palm TX serves mostly as backup in these cases, I use it for ebook stuff mostly; it’s for if I upgrade the phone and trade it in for their unique “recycling” compensation offer, otherwise; plus I couldn’t pass up the fire-sale price they were offering for it). The Centro has a real keyboard (well, you use your thumbs, but it’s superior to the on-screen variety) so I don’t really need this solution for PDA or email/SMS-chat functionality, where I do the most input, since the Centro is my main PDA and mobile internet.
I basically only use the iPod touch for my dreams of appstore world-domination now. 😉 Someone offered me a hundred for it, but if I sell apps in the appstore, I should be able to make more than that from it, so I declined and sold my iPod nano to him (for considerably less than that) instead. 🙂
Whatever works for you. But it really is an excellent input system.
A real keyboard trumps both capacitive touch screen keyboars or stylus-based input systems, even one as small as the Centro’s. If in the future I need it though, I’ll consider it.
There is a possibility that I could trade in a centro for something without a keyboard, the Centro 2, a cheaper Pre running webOS is said to be one that won’t have a keyboard according to the rumors; and I could want it if that platform is a lot more successful than some predict and I can’t afford a real Pre which has the keyboard and a capacitive screen. (If webOS is successful, there’s a good possibility that this old Palm developer’s software won’t just run in emulation, but there’ll be a native version. 🙂 I suspect if there is a Centro 2, there will have been at least a modicum of Pre-success. 🙂 )
Otherwise, why bother when all my mobile typing is with an actual keyboard? If I need something PDA-ish to be in my iTouch, I can put it into iCal or Address Book or whatever, or into my Centro which syncs with those, and it’ll push it over any wifi connection as long as I have mobile me (and when I don’t, I don’t plan on renewing, ordinary syncing via iTunes) and for email I always use my Centro anyway. I don’t sync my email on the itouch on a regular basis at all…
As I said, whatever works for you. I use my Touch as an “external brain,” so anything that lets me enter information more quickly is a good thing as far as I’m concerned.
Well, as you can see, that’s the role of my Centro. My iPod touch is more of a portable entertainment center (that I don’t carry everywhere, unlike the phone) and platform for future development work on my part.