Operating Systems > macOS
Users or fans?
piratePenguin:
--- Quote ---I don't care how good voice recognition ever becomes, I can't see it replacing keyboards because it'll never work well in noisy environments and the user won't necessarily want others to hear what they're they're saying.
--- End quote ---
Lip-reading!!!
I think you've pinned it all down in that post.
There are good alternatives to keyboards in the form of alternate input interfaces for touch devices. There's a cool one I've used (it was free software and I checked it out on my ubuntu), but speed is the issue with many of these interfaces, I imagine if they could compete with the king - that is keyboards, they would be all over the iPhone/Android devices.
piratePenguin:
For alternative input methods, see dasher (as I recall it was developed for particular devices, people with disabilities, and such applications, it was not designed to be an alternative to a keyboard. Also I used to be able to use dasher fairly quickly (uncomparable to typing still) - this demo is set to a really really slow mode).
It's an interesting idea, but it still isn't a replacement for an on-screen keyboard.
On-screen keyboards are suitable for phones imo, but a device like an ipad should have a (detachable) physical keyboard of sorts. This is certainly the present situation for me, and in the future we'd require something radical to change this. Some out of the box thinking such as dasher.
Lead Head:
That dasher thing seems interesting, but both the guys videos start getting choppy and un-watchable for some reason. Couldn't really see how it was working.
piratePenguin:
You can get it in the ubuntu repositories and suse repositories and try it yourself.
Also see http://www.google.ie/search?q=android+dasher
I like this, but I really don't think it will be faster than touch typing - on a phone, on a slate like the ipad where typing is SO uncomfortable (it seems; I've no experience with an ipad), however, dasher may be an answer.
There are other alternatives to touch keyboards on the ipad too, in particular I can imagine breaking the keyboard up so that half the keys are on each side of the display beside where you're holding the device, and such that you can reach for every key without needing to leave the ipad ontop of something (probably necessary to rotate the keys, may take a little getting used to).
Hopefully android tablets at least have some options available, since I actually think this (lack of real input) would be a show-stopper for the ipad for me, but it could be solved, and one day I may want a tablet.
edit: heres the best dasher vid I've seen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-WLiY2p1LQ&feature=related btw when it appears to break up, it's because the operator is moving the cursor closer to the center, to take time to find the next letter. (it uses predictive text so that probable next letters are bigger than less probable ones)
Lead Head:
That is actually pretty interesting. Can't imagine anyone trying to send text messages quickly on something like that though.
As far as your half keyboard idea, it would basically be like this, but done in software on a touchscreen?
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