Hi Dónal and Others, First off, there are a number of predictive typing apps available for people who want to take advantage of this on the virtual keyboard of iOS devices. There are also applications like TextExpander, which make input of text on computers and iOS devices more efficient by custom snippet definitions, whether using the virtual keyboard or a hardware keyboard, and go way beyond simple text substitution. These are not blindness specific.
I think that the predictive algorithm that Fleksy uses is more sophisticated than the explanation you gave Travis, but I don't know this for a fact. I'd guess that it uses relative position changes -- so if you weren't certain of the absolute position of letters on the screen, but still knew that "e" and "r" are in the same row, but that "n" is way below and to the right, you'd still get a match. So, if you placed the phone on a flat table and tried to type -- not that I ever use the iPhone this way -- and if you got the approximate spatial relationships between keys correct, but not the absolute position of the bottom row of keys, you would still get good matches to the word predictions. There are many cases where even people with good spatial awareness might have difficulty typing on the virtual keyboard. For example, one of the arguments for the TypeInBraille app was that there were situations like trying to enter text on a moving bus where it can be difficult to type letters with precision. Also, depending on how steady your touch is (e.g., tremors due to various conditions, especially ones that might be age-related, such as Parkinson's disease), you might benefit from such an application. Fleksy is an app where increased use is likely to provide increased gains in the efficiency advantage. I find that I still spend a bit too much energy in the swipes to enter words. Also, the basic dictionary may not be matched to what you need to write, so the ability to import/export words that was added is a help. My first experience trying to speed type "famous documents and quotations" from memory hit an immediate vocabulary related snag when the fairly common words were just not common enough to be recognized by the algorithm until I entered them exactly and added them to the dictionary. Fleksy could take the route that TextExpander did, and make its API freely available to all developers to include. TextExpander gained enormous popularity that way, and even though we have alternative ways to input text now, and dictation works even for languages where typing accented characters used to be extra work, I still find that any really good text editing app will have support for TextExpander (and Dropbox) built in. HTH. Just my thoughts. YMMV. Cheers, Esther <--- Mac Access At Mac Access Dot Net ---> To reply to this post, please address your message to mac-access@mac-access.net You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Mac-Access forum at either the list's own dedicated web archive: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/mac-access/index.html> or at the public Mail Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-access@mac-access.net/>. Subscribe to the list's RSS feed from: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-access@mac-access.net/maillist.xml> The Mac-Access mailing list is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free! Please remember to update your membership options periodically by visiting the list website at: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/mac-access/options/>
