(Written via my TC1100 using the 1st gen TIP, which do has Block Recognizer)

On a recent trip, we were wandering aimlessly through a business park searching for a Mexican restaurant. The driver admitted that she only vaguely knew its location.

So I whipped out my iPhone and said “Hacienda near me”. (a restaurant name I couldn’t spell)

The car laughed.

Moments later I was able to direct the driver to the restaurant.

The car murmured “Cool”.

Speech when it works well can be fast and not so embarrassing. Still I don’t want to dictate my every email, IM, and google search to the world around me. Even future flawless speech input will still need a more private backup method.

James–I imagine you’ve tried ritepen; it allows the user to write anywhere onscreen. I have the older version, and it’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good for writing longer text passages.

I really do insist that the 10″ screen size is going to be optimal. It is professional size, akin to my larger Moleskines. With a bluetooth headset it allows for notes. It is useful for browsing. In a vertical mode, the thumbs are well positioned. The only reason I would want a larger tablet is for sketching, but I am not the average consumer or professional.

All of the above are coming around one day soon, so hopefully we’ll have our choice!

I do see some hope. Apple has been good at telling us what we want. Maybe they will do that again. Then we’ll learn and the problem will be solved. Palm told us to learn graffiti and nobody cared. Maybe when Jobs will tell us to learn, learn we will.

This could be one solution:

I’m fine with a virtual keyboard for _light_ input. Especially if the screen is big enough that I have a reasonable amount of the app still visible even when I’m using a full thumb sized keyboard. Imagine a 9″ Android Tablet, in portrait mode, with ConnectBot at the top, and a virtual keyboard at the bottom. I should have pretty close to a full 80×24 terminal visible in that use case.

For heavy typing, I have (in my gadget bag) a Matthias folding USB keyboard (no need to worry about connections or batteries, like with my older iGo folding Bluetooth keyboard). It’s full size, and quite usable. It just requires that I have a table, and that the device has USB ports. Luckily, the Entourage eDGe looks like it’ll work with this. That, and a video out port, gives you KVM support, as well.

One thing I think would greatly help Android (or any tablet OS) is the “Swipe” input method. You basically have an on screen qwerty keyboard, but instead of “tapping” the keys, you sort of play “connect the dots” with them. To type “send”, you put your finger down on the s, keep it down while moving to the e, keep it down while moving to the n, and keep it down while moving to the d. Then you raise your finger (for the first time since putting it down on the s). That would help a lot.

I don’t know how well Apple’s inkwell technology has improved upon (or even just preserved) the Newton handwriting recognition, but that’s another one that might be useful. But, for just taking notes, simple e-ink writing with a stylus, into a graphical format (no automated analysis of what you wrote) would be “useful enough”. You’d just have to go back and transcribe it yourself (with your USB keyboard, perhaps while at a KVM switch), later.

I personally never really liked Grafiti on the Palm. I know some people liked it a lot … and maybe it’s just that I didn’t use it enough to get used to it. But, yeah, I wouldn’t be attracted to that as an imposed solution. I also never use the Grafiti-like input on Maemo.

So, there you go: for the foreseeable future, on an Android tablet, I plan on using the on-screen/virtual keyboards for light text input. Then I plan to use a USB keyboard of some sort for heavier text input. If I get the Entourage eDGe, I could also use the e-paper screen for “written notes” that I transcribe via keyboard, later. Last, I’d find it useful to see the “swipe input” method available for the Android virtual keyboards :-}

So what I really want is a better variety of easy to use keyboard input mechanisms to choose from. I hate to use my tablet as a tablet because the basic things I want to do are not intuitive – from changing the display brightness to text input for a text field to even managing OneNote pages. It should not be so hard.

Maybe a little work hunting and pecking is to be expected, but the rest should be natural.

My thinking is that it’s a catch-22… once it’s popular, text input and other controls on the tablet will become easier. But it won’t become popular until it’s easier.

So I think it will take one of the following:
1) A genius developer that just makes it work well.
2) Borrowed ideas from consumer phones or a future Apple tablet
3) A long slow evolution of improvements

Sorry if this sounds pessimistic, but I think it’s also just admitting the reality of the situation. I don’t deny that there are expert tablet users out there that can make it work as-is. But for the average user, it’s just not there overall (not just text input).

To give an example, when you write a proper name on a tablet PC, or an abbreviation, or some other term that’s out of the ordinary and that is not going to be recognised by the converter, you have to go into the mode where you can tap out the word letter by letter. It’s a nuisance, but no surprise. What is a surprise is that even in Windows 7 making this transition between input modes is clunky.

Another handwriting-recognition irritation I’m finding in Windows 7 is that recognised-and-converted text is still liable to change as you continue to write subsequent words. It’s so frustrating to see words that have been correctly recognised mysteriously changing to incorrect words.

Issues like these stand in the way of general acceptance of handwriting recognition, I think, and make some sort of keyboard essential. But, as you say, how can you attach a keyboard elegantly to a device that’s basically a type of slate?

I’ve moved from a slate to a convertable primarily for price issues. My Motion LE 1600 died suddenly and I needed to preplace it right away but did not have the extra $2000 or so to get another Motion. I went with an HP tx2510us but am not happy with it.

I had been using ink and handwriting recognition up till then with great results. I got the tablet primarily to be able to sign digital docs and annotate photos for my business. I now use the keyboard. When I write articles I use Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 wit great results. I write software reviews twice a month and maintain 4 blogs and this is the main input method for these longer pieces.

With improvements in noise canceling mic technology, I think this would be the best solution for input to a keyboardless slate tablet.

http://gizmodo.com/5415292/the-crunchpad-is-dead