Hi Guys
First of all sto say "hang in there", virtual keyboards, like anything
else, get easier the more you use them. One of the best things I did as
my sight began to fail was to learn to touch type and I still do that
now, fairly quickly. When I was presented with a virtual screen
initially I was rubbish and wanted to see the keypad that code factory
had built for Nokia, the one where you tapped in zones almost like with
old style texting )I think that was called T9). I flirted with full
quwertyphysical keyboards on two different phones and I didn't get on
well. When you're learning it's all about muscle memory and with a
physical keyboard if you hit the wrong key you have to delete and try
again. I found I would delete and then make the same mistake again and
sometimes again! With a virtual keyboard if you hit the wrong key, you
are told straight away and you simply slide your finger to the correct
key, usually only one key away. I still type on a phone or tablet with
one finger but a lot less errors.
Three more points firstly I don't think the manufacturers are making
touch screens or keyboards because of perceived demand. They continue
with keyboards either they there is a niche market or because they are
tooled up to do that. They make touch screeens because they are cheaper
to make and assemble in volume and provide more real estate for
advertising etc for the service providers. I know this is cynical but
few phone makers are there to fulfill our wishees.
Next point is that phones are increasingly geared towards speech, with
Siri, Google voice and the upcoming Moto X all taking the general phone
user towards speech. This will help us even more and bear in mind that
the virtual keyboard has a speech button, not long ago we'd have to
search for a little microphone icon, speech is becoming embedded.
Finally, and on topic, code factory have always put us first and taken
accessiblity forward in leaps. I paid a fair amount for MA because it
was the first step into Android and it was safe, stable and familiar.
However the competition and the mainstream phone access has cuught up or
overtaken. They need to think of something innovative once more, it
might even be the old tappy tappy keyboard or an easier interface to
other Android apps. But let's not forget what they have done already
with MA and hope they can come up with the next quantum leap. Perhaps we
can guide them as to what would be ideal for us, would it be a physical
keyboard, a better virtual keyboardor awesome speech input?
Hang in there people and count your blessings on the fantastic
improvements in the last five years or less, that have made us hungry
for more.
Cheers
Paul
On 28/07/2013 05:40, Leslie Fairall wrote:
Correction on my part. I only described how to get into the virtual
keyboard settings under Mobile Accessibility. To use the virtual
keyboard, long press your volume up key. I really stink, but am trying
to learn? Is landscape the best layout? Should I use the dynamic
keyboard. I want to be able to use both before it's all over. Since my
phone has Jellybean, I can take my time learning since my phone isn't
going out-of-date anytime soon.
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