Today’s post is dedicated to the advancements in Virtual Keyboard technology, and how far they have come. Also, my answer to the penultimate question of “Z10, or Q10?”.
I remember my first experience with a virtual keyboard years ago. Nope, it is not the iPhone. It is in fact a HP iPaq RW6828, a PDA phone running Windows Mobile 5.0.
Now this was way before iPhone popularised the capacitive touch screen, so we are talking about resistive touch screens over here. It was a PITA to use. I remember trying to use my fingernails to ‘peck’ out messages, or use the stylus that came with it. It was a powerful device, but hardly what I would call an intuitive user experience.
Then came the iPhone with its predictive virtual keyboard. It was decent, or I should say bearable. The prediction engine was pretty basic, often than not it was inaccurate with its prediction, resulting in posts we see over at damnyouautocorrect.com. It remained that way for a long time while other manufacturers played catch up to Apple.
I got myself a BlackBerry Bold 9000 after a few years with my iPhone, and learned the pleasure of a well-designed physical QWERTY keyboard. Meanwhile, Android was making huge leaps in terms of predictive input due to its customisable nature. SwiftKey, was frankly one of the first virtual keyboard that I felt was good enough for typing out large amounts of text.
To be frank, Windows Phone’s virtual keyboard is not half bad, with good predictive input as well.
Fast forward to today, the best virtual keyboard that I have used thus far, is undoubtedly the one found on BlackBerry 10. They said they wanted to create the best typing experience no matter on a physical or a virtual keyboard, and I think they did. No need to take my word for it, just go through reviews of the Z10 and you’ll find lots of reviewers with the same opinion as mine.
Its predictive engine is from SwiftKey, along with its ability to ‘learn’ the way you type. BlackBerry added a plethora of gestures to make the experience even better. Like showing the prediction/correction on the keyboard itself instead of a separate bar on top of it. Flicking them up instead of tapping them. Swiping to the left to delete previous word, 2 fingers for 2, 3 fingers for 3. Swiping down on the keyboard to access symbols. Language detection. So on and so forth.
It is the first virtual keyboard I have used that I could see myself enjoying. A keyboard that I can use to pump out long messages or large amount of text.
This entire post was actually typed on my Z10, then sent to my desktop so I could post and insert images where necessary.
Virtual keyboard these days are all pretty good. Often than not people can type faster on a virtual keyboard compared to a physical keyboard. I know I can. But it’s certainly not perfect. I have been with the Z10 for more than 2 months, but I still can’t trust it, not completely at least. I still double check what I’ve typed just to be sure. Take this for example.
Which is why I am going to be switching to a Q10 soon. While I am most certainly a slower type on a physical keyboard, I am most certainly more accurate on it. That to me, is more important to than a larger display,and the faster typing speed. Personally, I prefer having full control over the things I want to a type. It is simply a personal preference.
Some of you might call me old fashion, or refusing to keep up with the times, or that I just didn’t “give virtual keyboards a chance”. I have. I lived with the iPhone as my daily driver for at least 3 or more years. I had multiple Windows Phone and Android devices. Plus I have been using the Z10 as my daily driver for more than 2 months now. So I most certainly have “given it a fair trial”. While the virtual keyboard on the Z10 is brilliant, it is not perfect yet, not for me at least. There are still room for improvements.
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So, to conclude, here’s to virtual keyboards and their hilarious auto-correction. Here’s to BlackBerry, for creating the best virtual keyboard thus far.
It is not perfect yet but I have no doubt that eventually it will be. Just look at how far we came from the days of the resistive touch screen virtual keyboard. Perhaps one day, there might be a virtual keyboard that is perfect for me. But now, I’m getting physical.
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