Slide, Don’t Type On Your iPod Touch or iPhone

If you’ve got an iPod Touch or iPhone, you’ve got to give this neat little app a try. Its called “Writing Pad” and it’s free.

It may look like your average textpad or notepad, but it’s far from it. You can type the old fashioned way by tapping on individual keys, or you can type the new fashioned way, by sliding your finger across the soft keyboard.

Instead of tapping, you slide or drag your finger across your iPhone’s soft keyboard, making a continuous line from one letter to another. It’s shape writing technology from ShapeWriter.

It certainly makes writing on your device much easier. It’s so easy in fact, I’m using it right now to write this, while in a car on my way to visit the in-laws in another province (no I’m not doing the driving at the moment).

At first, it may appear a little daunting, but you get used to it pretty quickly. After a little practice, I find I can type faster this way, than by tapping. It’s surprisingly accurate, even with long, difficult words like “surprisingly” and “accurate.”

It has a lexicon of almost 60,000 words but sometimes you’ll come across one that it doesn’t recognize. For example, it may have trouble with strange names. Mayoff and Slartibartfast aren’t there, but Beeblebrox and Trillian are.

But even so, it’s no problem really. Just tap them in and Writing Pad will ask you if you want it to remember them. From then on they’ll be available for sliding.

Often the same sliding motion can produce more than one word. For example, “paranoid” can also produce “patented”, “parenthood” and “piebald.” When that happens, the most common one is displayed in your document and a list of the other possibilities are displayed in a bar below the document window. Just tap the one you’re looking for to insert it into the document.

Double letters? No problem. Ignore them. Type cool as c-o-l and Writing Pad just knows what you’re trying to say.

Capitalization? Writing Pad will usually know, but if not, hit the Case button and it will cycle through the various possibilities, like Iphone, iPhone, iphone and IPHONE.

Sounds great, but wouldn’t it be even better if you could use it for something useful? Sending mail, perhaps? Well you can. Slide out your email using Writing Pad and then click Done. Now you’ll see three buttons at the bottom of your screen: Delete, Email and New.

Tap ‘Email’ and your note opens as an email, read for sending. Unfortunately, you can’t easily reply to your messages using the system.

The only negative about Writing Pad is that the shape writing technology is only available when you’re in the app itself and not throughout the entire system. Once you try it, you won’t want to ever go back to the old fashioned way of typing again.

Writing pad from the iTunes app store is well worth the price (free).

(By) Jason Mayoff is a radio newscaster, tech geek and the Make Use Of Podcast Editor. If you’re ever in Montreal, Canada you can hear him on CJAD 800. You can also find Jason at Podcasters4Hire.com and pleasantnights.com, where he talks about keeping an organized and clutter-free home.

Filed Under: Mobile Apps
Tags: iphone, iPhone Apps, notepad, writing