If typing text on your Android smartphone is difficult for you, you may want to try 8pen.
8pen is new text input software that makes it possible to input text faster than using conventional
layouts on small screens, while at the same time mimicking human handwriting. Letters are placed around an X, and you touch around the X for different letters; the most frequently used letters are easiest to reach.
They claim that the simplicity
of the gestures involved, greatly reduces the mistyping that frequently occurs with the classical layout
due to the lack of space.
For the same reason, it is possible to write without viewing,
as only the central region is needed as a reference for starting and ending a movement.
Here's how it works:
A character is produced by pressing in the center, entering any of the 4 sectors, and then passing through either 1, 2, 3 or 4 adjacent sectors in either clockwise or anticlockwise direction, before returning to the center. The order of the letters along the edges, and the side on which they are placed, indicate the number of sectors to be passed through, and the direction of the movement, respectively.
Special characters, such as é, ø, ß or § are produced almost like the standard ones,
but by pausing the movement in the appropriate sector. For uppercase characters,
there is a little trick.
Gestures started outside of the central region can be used
to quickly produce custom character sequences, such as your name or a commonly used phrase.
"It looks confusing, but it's really just a matter of using your finger to create a number of circles and figure 8s on your phone," said Michael Fester, creator of the program who is a Ph.D. mathematics student at Cambridge College.
Producing a character is easy, fast, and feels like handwriting. Once familiar with the position of the letters, writing can even be done without viewing.
8pen works with Android 1.6 and above and is available on Android Market.