An Innovative Approach

• Category: Productivity
• Developer: ShapeWriter Inc.
• Version: 1.0.2
• Cost: Free
• For: iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPod Touch
• Download URL

When I switched from my Crackberry Pearl to the iPhone, one of the things I was surprised about was how hard it is to type on the darn thing. I knew touchscreens would be different, but c’mon, we’re talking about the Pearl with its not-so-suretype keyboard I was coming from. Anything with a full keyboard has got to be better, right? Well, all I can say is that I got quickly acquainted with the backspace button.

Which brings us to Writing Pad. Writing Pad aims to offer a different approach to using the keyboard, integrated with a notepad program that can file the various notes away, or send the note via the email app.

I must say, the alternate input method is quite interesting. When I saw th screenshot at the app store, I half expected a hand writing recognition input method similar to the Palm Pilots of old. Rather, you are still offered a QWERTY keyboard, but rather than tapping on each letter, you simply hold down your finger and slide to each letter of your word, ignoring double letters if applicable. Writing Pad either identifies the word you are typing and pastes it onto the screen (much like the auto correct on the default keyboard), displays a list of words to choose from in a status bar, or identifies the wrong word (which can be corrected quickly with a single backspace).

The writing system takes some getting used to but works quite well to be honest. In the beginning it’s easy to forget the exact position of a letter when your finger is covering that part of the screen, but once you get the hang of it, you can type pretty fast. However, if you get a word wrong - and some words I just can’t do some words correctly - you’ll find yourself never getting it right. Thankfully, you can still tap on the keyboard normally.

Overall, after some playing around I quite like the writing system. Unfortunately for me there is one major downfall - the keyboard only works within the application itself, which means writing notes or sending outbound emails. While no fault of this app or the developers - this is a limitation set by Apple - it’s just not worth my time to build proficiency in one input method while everywhere else I need to use the standard keyboard.

Conclusion

Overall I quite like the app and after some trial and error started to really like the input method they’ve devised. The fact that it’s free is amazing for such a slick app. I probably won’t be using it much given that other apps can’t take advantage of the input method,but that’s a personal decision that shouldn’t take away from how great the product is.

App Score: 4.0 out of 5

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