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I love touchscreens, but I hate typing on them. The Android default keyboard is no exception, so I’ve decided to try an alternative Android keyboard.
With SlideIT the idea is to slide a finger over a touchscreen keyboard to enter text. There are quite a few single-handed sliding text entry apps out there, but this one stands out for its accuracy.
SlideIT has a free demo version and a full version for USD 8, both available for download on Android Market. There are a few tweaks in settings that have to be done once SlideIT is installed so that you can activate keyboard.
Go to Settings > Locale & Text, and enable the SlideIT keyboard. Alternatively tap and hold the ?123 key on the default keyboard to open the Input method and select the SlideIT keyboard from there.
Now whenever you want to type, the SlideIT keyboard will pop up instead of the default Android keyboard. There are two modes—ABC mode is the simple keyboard and SlideIT mode is for slide typing.
Touch a letter as you begin to type a word and then drag your finger along the keyboard to spell out the subsequent letters, without lifting your finger up. At the end of the word, remove your finger. For example to type Hello Shanzai, touch H and then slide through E, L, O, lift up your finger for the space between the words and then touch S, and trip through H, A, N, Z, A and I.
SlideIT does take a bit of practice to get used to, so don’t give up straight away if you get some words wrong in the beginning.
If the word you wanted to slide doesn’t appear on the screen, it’s because your input wasn’t right, or because a more popular word is in the same slide route. In that case, the SlideIT will present you with a list of word suggestions and you can choose the word you want from it.
There are handy options to cut, copy and paste from the number mode, and there are a number of settings and customization options to go through.
The smartest feature of SlideIT is how it lets you fly over text by recognizing shortcuts, like LY for Love you, MC for Merry Christmas and ASAP for As soon as possible. You can add your own shortcuts as well of course.
SlideIT is also available in multiple languages; you can change the language in the settings menu.
SlideIT also has Graffiti support (Palm-style block-letter recognition) for handwriting letters on the SlideIT keyboard. Tap the G icon to turn it on and the keyboard will shrink to unveil an empty space where you can handwrite with your fingers or a stylus. Unfortunately, the handwriting mode is not all that sensitive and I found that it often made mistakes. SlideIT also struggles a bit with special characters.
So, I wasn’t having much joy with typing on the Android default keyboard, but SlideIT gave me enough reasons to quit typing and start sliding.
Disclaimer:
*Shanzai.com is a news and reviews website, we do not promote specifically the purchase or sale of the products and services mentioned in our content.
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