Living in science fiction

[supergee]

I am about to join the 21st century (“dragged kicking and screaming” would be an exaggeration) by getting a smartphone. The part that bothers me is writing messages, as I am clumsy (“dick-fingered,” the Texans say) with hands that have always trembled and age has withered and/or custom staled. (The term I like is claudication, because it is an Anthony Burgess word; no Burgess novel is complete without claudication and apotropaic.) I am told one can get a phone with a stylus, which should help. Suggestions and advice gratefully accepted.

Comments

[melita66]

Drive-by...

You might find someone with an android phone that supports swipe. It will still come up with some wacky interpretations though.

[ruthling]

i use swype and some of the other things like it and it fits me well, but it's a skill also. and yeah, when it messes up, it really messes up.

almost any smartphone will work with a stylus. I recommend supergee just try a bunch, maybe see what friends are using.

[semperfiona]

Swype is also available for the iPhone these days. I use it and love it, but it takes some getting used to. People like to bag on auto-correct but it's usually at least close to the same spelling. Swype's misinterpretations are REALLY out there sometimes.

[autopope]

Continued development of Swype (by Nuance, the folks who do Dragon Dictate) was discontinued a couple of months ago. It's now an orphaned product, which sucks.

SwiftKey (another swiping/gestural keyboard) is now owned by Microsoft and is being developed on an ongoing basis.

For my money, GBoard by Google is the most accurate of the swiping keyboards at getting input right. Longer words are better (the finger tracing the letters on the keyboard effectively creates a unique ideogram; the more strokes, the easier for the computer to recognize what you're telling it).