The feature that gets most users riled up in their smartphones is the quality of the keyboard. Whether if it’s a soft virtual keyboard or a hardware QWERTY, it seems to be one of the biggest factors/dividers in buying a smartphone. Obviously no keyboard is perfect for everyone, but there is a new technology called Swype on the way that may change the way we type on our mobile devices.
The video above showcases Swype and what’s unique about it is that though all the keys are laid out in the familiar QWERTY format, you don’t ‘press’ multiple letters to form a word, rather you drag your fingers to touch the letters and trust the system to figure out the rest. The video pits a Samsung Omnia II vs an iPhone in a test of 25 words. The Swype system handedly defeats the iPhone but given it’s a Swype-created video, it may be a wee bit biased.
Even though Swype looks great, we’re not sure if we could ever completely abandon QWERTY keyboards. There will always be a need for them. Swype is planning on porting the technology over to Android in early 2010.
What do you guys think about Swype? What’s your favorite keyboard option on Android? G1 keyboard? HTC soft keyboard? Virtual Android keyboard? Let us know in the comments!
[via techcrunch]