The other day, I heard about a new iOS app put out by Microsoft’s experimental
app development team (a “Microsoft Garage” project):
“Word Flow”.
Having been impressed with some previous Microsoft Garage projects,
and noticing that the keyboard looked suspiciously familiar, I decided to check
it out.
Like Swype,
Word Flow allows both the classic point-and-tap typing mechanism, and the
swiping typing mechanism wherein a user drags their finger continuously between
the various letters on the keyboard which constitute a desired word
in order to generate it.
(However, I feel that Word Flow’s point-and-tap precision is higher than Swype’s was when I last used Swype.)
Although the keyboard methodologies it allows aren’t novel, it has a couple of fresh takes on modern smartphone virtual keyboard design:
- Word Flow enables more interesting keyboard themes than most other keyboards
I’ve seen. Some of the themes include some pretty gnarly fractal designs.
You can also create a custom theme from an image.
- More interestingly, Word Flow has a novel one-handed usage mode. On each
side of the keyboard are two arc buttons. When an arc button on one side of
the keyboard is dragged down, the keyboard orientation shifts to become
a concentric arc oriented towards the corner of that side of the keyboard.
In this arc mode, the QWERTY keyboard is shifted, making it easier to tap
at distant keys with just a thumb. It also makes reaching over the keyboard
for swiping (although I haven’t mastered it yet). To restore the original,
level keyboard, the arc button simply needs to be swiped up.
In addition to this, I’m a bit pleased that I finally have access to the
Windows Mobile Phone virtual keyboard, which has long been not-so-secretly
known to be arguably the best-in-class virtual keyboard of any mobile phone.
In a few days with the keyboard, I have to say I’m generally quite pleased
with it, although it has a couple of quirks:
- The keyboard requires a bit of a lengthy set up to configure in iOS,
due to the permissions required.
- Every app, and in the Messages app, every contact, remembers a separate
third party keyboard. This means that every single distinct person that I
message needs to have the keyboard reconfigured.
- Password and credit card fields in apps and on websites
don’t appear to allow the third party Word Flow keyboard,
for security reasons.
While I’m glad Apple is taking the step of ensuring there’s no chance
an untrusted third party might be snooping on my passwords, and I’m similarly
happy that I can have different keyboards for different contacts,
I do have to state that it gets a bit jarring to go back and forth between
the default iOS keyboard and Word Flow so often. Normally, it takes
days or weeks to adjust to a new keyboard, while unlearning one set of muscle
memories for another. I’ll have to continue using the keyboard for a while
longer to see whether it’s worth putting up with the inconsistent experience.