Touch is important in the smartphone world because it accounts for 100% of our interactions with our devices. Whether it is selecting text, zooming photos or playing games, touch is everything.
Capacitive screens and modern mobile software make the experience feel natural to the point that you do not even consider what goes on below your finger and it is a world away from phones of the past.
One area that is still not liked by some smartphone users are the touch keyboards that modern smartphones employ. Because the manufacturers, quite rightly, want to make the screens dominate as much of the form as possible, touch keyboards are a requirement unless you have a specific need for a BlackBerry or a hardware-keyboarded Android phone.
On Android you can replace the standard touch keyboard with a variety of different solutions; from clever apps that let you type without ever lifting your finger from the screen to solutions designed to mimic the keyboards of other phones i.e. iPhone, the choice is yours and you can spend as long as you need finding the perfect solution for you. However, if there is no perfect solution because you can’t get the hang of touch screen keyboards, you have two choices-
You can buy a smartphone with a hardware keyboard of which the Motorola Pro Plus is a very good example.
Or you can try using your voice. Apple has received countless headlines for its Siri service, but the voice recognition features on Android and Windows Phone are worthy contenders for most basic tasks. As we learn to get over our inhibitions and feel more comfortable speaking to our phones in public, the day may come when touch is used for what it is really designed for; selection, navigation and general one-touch tasks. The day may come when natural language software is accurate enough to let us simply speak and to not try typing on the tiniest of keyboards on a flat surface. Let’s hope it comes soon.
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About Shaun McGill