Well, now you can! The
Flicboard is a touch screen keyboard app that gives you the
ability to type at up to 45 words per minute without having to glance
down at the keys. It's a fast Android keyboard that runs on most
smartphones and tablets. Eyes free operation makes it
possible to easily compose emails, send texts, or take notes while in a
meeting or classroom or while with friends. The combination of speed and
eyes-free operation makes the type of serious work, normally done on a
laptop or desktop, possible on your smartphone or tablet .
Rather than tapping on tiny keys, the FlicBoard uses gestures
to compose text. These gestures are simple to do and easy to learn. A
few simple one finger gestures, consisting of taps and swipes, are used
in combination with one, two or three fingers to allow a unique gesture
for each character or shift to be entered (see
video). More information on true gesture typing can be found here.
Of course these gestures, as with the key positions in touch typing, must be learned. To aid in the learning process, the FlicBoard displays a table under your fingers that tells you how to make the correct gesture (see the figure below). Later, after the gestures have been learned, it can be used as a look-up for more obscure characters and punctuation. Eyes free operation is possible because you don't have to accurately touch a specific area on the screen. The fingers need only fall within the active area of the keyboard app to be recognized. Once the gestures are learned, text can be entered very quickly without even looking at the screen.
The fact that the swipes can be as short as a few millimeters along
with no need for eye-hand coordination, makes the FlicBoard one of the
fastest touchscreen keyboards. Thus far the FlicBoard
has been demonstrated at up to 45 words per minute (with auto word
completion turned off). Higher speeds are entirely possible.
How it Works
The FlicBoard uses one, two or three fingers of one
hand to form a character and can be used with either the right or left
hand. When more than one finger is used, all the fingers make the same
gesture making the multi-finger gestures easy to perform. The gestures
consist of taps and simple swipes. For example swiping one finger down
enters the letter "o", while simultaneously swiping the index and middle
finger down together, enters the letter "s". Swiping all three fingers
down enters a "d". Again notice that, with any of these gestures, the
fingers can be anywhere within the active area of the FlicBoard
and be recognized. A simple "calibration gesture" where all three
fingers are swiped up and then down, registers the orientation of the
hand so the FlicBoard can be used in various positions.
As mentioned above, the gestures are made on top of a table that shows
you how to form them, as shown to the right. To the right of each
character in the table, a row of symbols shows how the corresponding
gesture is formed. A filled circle means that the corresponding finger
is tapped while arrow symbols mean it is swiped in the direction(s)
indicated. For example the letter "e", , is entered by simultaneously tapping two
adjacent fingers while the letter "s", , is entered by swiping the same two fingers
down. Some swipes are curved, in that they start in one of the
directions and end in another. For example the letter "m", , is entered by swiping one
finger down and to the right. The hyphen symbol means that the
corresponding finger does not touch the screen e.g. the letter
"k", , is
entered by simultaneously swiping the index and ring fingers to the left
while the middle finger remains raised.
The FlicBoard has two shifts. One for upper case
characters and one for numbers. These shifts also allow the entry of all
the special symbols normally available on a standard "qwerty" keyboard.
So why not give it a try! The FlicBoard is the best touch screen
keyboard app those who want to get the most out of their tablet or
phone. The FlicBoard can be installed using the link
below. It works on almost all phones and tablets using Android 2.2 or
later that support at least three finger multi-touch.