…when you think about it.
It’s kind of like that when you don’t think about it too.
But especially when you do.
It’s difficult to read if you can only watch the person typing.
Sort of like lip reading
Especially trace typing.
Blows my mind that in 2025, people still look at me like a wizard when I do it. Like, “you know you don’t have to press each button like a Neanderthal, you can just trace the word from letter to letter and it mostly works.” And then the blue line or “tail” that follows your finger just mesmerises them. Like bro, I’ve been doing this since like 2010, were you whelped in a barn, my good sir?
I’m a key press purist. I want physical buttons back on phones. Tactile feedback is a god damned thing. We should be using more of our senses to express our thoughts and intentions into machines, not less.
But, pray tell, how do you keep your finger on the screen at all times doing that while you’re writing? How is it superior to “tap” style?
Okay, so you can actually get physical keyboards for phones. Matter of fact, I’m typing on a mechanical keyboard on my Mac. If I really wanted to, I could reach in front, flip the switch from “USB C” to “BT” and pair it to my phone. And then I’m typing on a mechanical keyboard… on my iPhone. (Works just as well with Android. Not sure about now, but back in the day, CTRL+ALT+DEL would reboot Android. No confirmation. Screen goes black and then it’s booting up. Fun times. Not sure how to do that on a Mac keyboard though. CTRL+⌘+DEL? Maybe. I dunno.
But I have an iPhone, I don’t really do a lot of typing on it. As far as I know, Apple never made a good keyboard, hardware or software. I tolerate the one on my MacBook. It IS good, for a laptop keyboard… but it’s a laptop keyboard. Absolutely fucking atrocious that official Mac desktop keyboards are also laptop keyboards. “Because thin”, I guess? Fucking stupid. If I wanna type on a phone, I actually enable hotspot on the iPhone, put it down, and pick up my old Galaxy S10. Gboard is awesome on Android, but it sucks on iOS.
Now, as far as trace typing… I dunno. I just got used to it. Been doing it for 15 years. If I know the word, I kinda… just trace it. On Android, it’s VERY forgiving. On an iPhone, it’ll do some weird and straight up dumb corrections, like “and” gets changed to “Abe”. Who the fuck is Abe? Someone who worked on the keyboard? I don’t know anyone called Abe. But the keyboard automatically inserts his name in place of “and” half the time. So yeah, I don’t like typing on iPhones. On Android though? Well, going back to what OP said about it being kind of like sign language? You don’t really think about it. You just do it. As far as how superior it is? Really comes down to personal preference. When Swype had the patent/whatever on it, they said it was faster, but they were kinda biased. Back then, you couldn’t buy the app. Your phone’s manufacturer had to buy and preload it. Now everyone can do it, including iPhone (they call it “QuickPath”) (albeit badly) and Swype isn’t really a thing anymore. I think it’s faster. For me it is. But I’m with you, I prefer typing on a mechanical keyboard. Just feels better.
This reply would be half as long if I were on Android. Couple sentences if I were on my iPhone. But you got me on my Mac. With the good keyboard. Sorry. ;)
You just tap the first letter, and then slide your finger over the other letters until you’ve finished the word. Then you lift your finger and do the next word. It’s faster than tapping because you don’t need to lift your finger off the screen nearly as much. Especially when you only have one hand.
That being said, I do really miss my old phone that you could turn on its side and slide out a physical keyboard.
I find it gets it wrong way more often, it’s just not only naturally faster to me, but also more precise. And I think that that’s the reason it’s not standard. It’s like using a Dvorak keyboard, a different style that may be faster in theory if you’re willing to learn it, but for the majority that’s just not the case.
Also I feel uncomfortable smushing my finger tip around on the keyboard, it generates friction and introduces more screen smear, I just don’t see how it’s possibly faster than typing like you would on a keyboard, though I have forty years of practice so maybe it’s a generational thing.
I thought about it. You’re right, I think. But even had I not thought about it, you’d still be right.
That’s how reality works.
Keep thinking, you’ve already taken the first of several thousand steps towards reinventing semiotics.
Then, like, 10,000 steps later you get emojis?
I think I see the play on words, since each key is a “sign”. In practice though, Sign Languages tend to be a mix of logographic language where each sign represents an idea or concept and segmental language where you string a bunch of letters/ sounds together to make words. I can only really speak to American Sign Language (ASL), but generally you only finger spell to super short words/ acronyms (like ASL) or as a fallback for when someone might not know a sign / when something might not have a sign (like proper nouns).
The image in my head as I was typing was that, if I removed the laptop beneath my fingers, I’d be basically signing in space. Sign language works differently in several distinct ways, but I guess my thought was that, we communicate with computers the same way we communicate with deaf people. I mean we don’t say the same things to them, but we use hand gestures to communicate. When we “speak” to deaf people using sign language, we are actually “typing”, or I think a better comparison would be stenography, with hand and finger motions.
It was just a shower thought. I don’t shower though so YMMV.
I was going to comment that this reads like someone who hasn’t interacted with sign languages before, but I totally see where they are coming from. I only really have experience with ASL (and that is 1 semester in college), but I would imagine most if not all sign languages do a lot more than just finger-spelling.
I know basic sign language. I was just high and had a thought, it’s not to be meant taken as a scientific proposition, though I bet I could defend it. The struggle would be to find anyone finding it interesting enough to read, because it’s not, that’s why it’s just a dumb showerthought.
