Loading ...Something I can't remember hearing much complaint about, surprisingly, is the absence of handwriting recognition on the iPhone. There have been various studies comparing the on-screen QWERTY keyboard with T9 and hardware thumb-board options, but seemingly little demand for the ability to write directly onto the cellphone's screen. Well, anybody who has missed such an option can now install iPhone Graffiti; as the name suggests, it's a version of the Graffiti handwriting recognition, as seen on Palm OS devices.
Supporting Latin and Chinese characters, as well as full punctuation and symbols, letters are drawn on the input grid in the lower half of the screen and converted as you write. Since the iPhone doesn't use a stylus, you might find you need to train your finger to make the shapes clearly. Alternatively there are a couple of compatible styli available, such as from Pogo.
iPhone Graffiti is still in early beta form, so the advice is to back up your handset before installing it. Some users are experiencing an issue with uninstalling the app, too, so if you're overly cautious then maybe wait for a version further down the line. Still interested? Add iphonecake.com/src/all as a source to Installer and go from there.
[via ModMyiFone]
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
This sounds like a good idea for some application situations. Maybe they could port the original Newton Graffiti to the iPhone?
Now we need to see a stylus that works on the iPhone too, .
I’m sure there is a portion of iPhone users who would be interested in a stylus.
I thought that every time an iPhone user saw any cellphone that comes with a stylus, quickly became bent-over-doubled with laughter. What? iPhone users with a stylus. I don’t think so. Why wouldn’t a stiff forefinger work well enough to input text.
The best part of Grafitti is that you didn’t need the stylus. Just use your fingernail. It is surprising anyone has the patience to take out the stylus when most entires are just a few characters.
Big Lou Everbody
Good to find this commentary. I was a loyal Treo user for several iterations. And I liked the ability to take notes using Stylus and software 3rd party. Corporate IT required a shift to Blackberry over past 2 years. Thumbs not nearly as efficient as Jott. And I can’t look at someone while using thumbs, where as I could do that while using a stylus. Mostly the stylus was a 2 point pen - regular ball point and stylus point]. I may get the chance to transfer to iPhone in the next year. It would be great to have the option of direct writing interface again.
I’ll change to Iphone when I can write on screen like I can with Palm.
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