Thought Delimited

Right now, there is a small window of opportunity for Android phone owners to acquire the newest "beta" (honestly, it's about as "beta" as Gmail used to be) version of the Swype virtual keyboard app.  It's only available for a few days for folks willing to register for the "beta" program (which is free) at http://beta.swype.com/.  You can't download it from the Android Market, so once the registration system is closed again you'll have to hope someone hacks the app to make it available (which admittedly happened with the initial beta), or buy one of the Android phones that comes with Swype pre-installed (that is Swype's "official" means of distribution).

So as I said already, Swype is a virtual keyboard app.  Once you install it, you can then use it instead of whatever virtual keyboard came installed and set as the default (ah, the freedom to choose...). What's special about it?  Instead of tapping each key (which you can still do if you want), you swipe/drag your finger across the keyboard from key to key to spell out the word you want to input. Even though you cross over numerous unwanted letters and numbers as you move your finger, it still somehow detects which of the keys you cross over with your fingers are the intended letters (maybe somehow detecting the briefest of pauses or the slight change in direction as you start moving to the next one). If it's not sure what you meant to spell, a list of possible choices pops up and you can tap the correct choice.

You lift your finger to complete a word, and if you start to trace out a new word it adds a space after the previous word automatically. There are also a number of special gestures, such as dragging your finger above the keyboard to capitalize the last letter you selected, and swirling your finger over a letter to enter the letter twice. You can see it in action in the videos on the Swype website.

I've been using Swype for quite a while, and I'm can compose text on my Droid a LOT faster with Swype than I could with the stock Android OR iPod Touch keyboard, and it works for me despite the fact that I sometimes hesitate or "take a wrong turn" because I've forgotten where on the keyboard the next letter is.

I strongly recommend that every Android owner take the opportunity presented by this beta offering and try it out for themselves.