8pen - A new way to write on mobile devices

I actually forced myself to learn to use this. It seemed cool, and potentially very powerful, so I used it exclusively for 6 months on my phone.<p>I got to the point where it was completely coded into muscle memory, I can still type on it without the letters displayed. While it feels really cool when you are using it, there are some pretty fatal flaws.<p>First off, even when you are going full tilt, it is slower than using the built in keyboard. Tapping the screen is much faster than making a loop on it.<p>The bigger problem, which I think would be interesting to see addressed, is that there is no tactile feedback to let you know where your finger is. Sometimes you will accidentally hit the middle partway through a figure, giving the wrong character. Other times you are on the wrong side of the dividing lines when you get to the centre. These things happen often enough that it gets annoying having to go back and delete characters.<p>A quick fix for the "being in the wrong spot" problems would be to make the centre into a square. A more complicated fix would be to try to look at the patterns that advanced users are making and analyze them to figure out what they are actually typing ( If my finger is moving down, I am probably trying to type the top quadrant ).<p>When you get going, it is pretty cool, but you are still slower than other keyboards, and when you try to relax a bit you will hit the lines in the wrong places from time to time.<p>A bit of work on making it smarter, and giving some sort of tactile feedback, and it would be a really great way to touch type on a smartphone, but for now it is not worth it.

Cache, since it's down: <a href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.8pen.com/watch" rel="nofollow">https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.8p...</a><p>This is genius as an idea, but I don't know if it could ever catch any sort of momentum in the market. It seems like it would take a long time to become fast at it.<p>A comparison to keyboards comes to mind - the keys on a keyboard really seem arbitrarily placed (though I am aware of the historical origin of QWERTY). Many people type slowly on keyboards, and it takes a lot of using one to get good at it. However the keys on a keyboard are labeled, so there is a lower threshold for newbies. Imagine what someone would look like typing on a blank keyboard. Their fingers would seem to be flying around at random.<p>People would be afraid to try learning it. That's what using 8pen is like.<p>And the problem is, there's no way to ever label all the loops and have them be visible.<p>It also seems like it would be easy to miss the center circle sometimes when closing a loop. I wish I could try it but I don't own an Android device.<p>Also, OP are you Gabe Newell or a different gaben?

Tutorial video and app download at this address:<p><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eightpen.android.eightpen" rel="nofollow">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eightpen.a...</a><p>Definitely won't take the place still in my heart for Graffiti ( <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti_(Palm_OS)" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti_(Palm_OS)</a> ).

Interesting idea.<p>The explainer video is painful, and does most of the things I find painful in videos like that. Slow paced, oddly accented English, very wordy in places, and essentially monotone. No clear promise about what it's going to show you early on -- the first 15 seconds or so made me disinterested. It got better, but normally I'd just skip to something else by then.

This appears to be a variant of a technique known in the research literature as <i>Quikwriting</i> [1] (a type of <i>FlowMenu</i> [2]), which you can still try online [3]. There hasn't been much in the way of evaluation of Quickwriting, but one study found people's initial performance was around 4WPM, increasing to 16WPM after five hours of practice [4].<p>I haven't used 8pen's implementation (so I don't know how their version differs), but I imagine it has a similarly steep learning curve.<p>[1] <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=288613" rel="nofollow">http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=288613</a> [2] <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=354401.354778" rel="nofollow">http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=354401.354778</a> [3] <a href="http://www.mrl.nyu.edu/perlin/demos/quikwriting.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.mrl.nyu.edu/perlin/demos/quikwriting.html</a> [4] <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1028014.1028031" rel="nofollow">http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1028014.1028031</a>

8pen has been around for a while, I remember using it in 2010.<p>I think if you get use to it it might have promise. Myself, I can type fast enough on a QWERTY layout (even on a touchscreen) that any of these fancier input methods just slow me down and annoy me.

I tried this a while ago and could never get used to it. It asks for too much learning to be widely adopted. (Think dvorak)

I tried it with an open mind for about a week when it first came out a while ago. That was the end of it for me.

Lol, this is hilarious.<p>This is basically Palm OS Graffiti, brought back from the dead and celebrated like innovation.<p>Heck, even the Apple Newton had it before the Palm OS.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti_%28Palm_OS%29" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti_%28Palm_OS%29</a>

Recoding the alphabet for input reminds me of this. Shame the page is always overloaded! <a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/help/promos/tap/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://mail.google.com/mail/help/promos/tap/index.html</a>

I think this would be like relearning touch typing. I don't think the time investment would be worth it. And, thumbs are not dexterous enough to make large words through this system without it getting annoying very quickly.

This is interesting but complicated. They might have more commercial success by copyrighting their keyboard layout and licensing it. The most confusing aspect is the number of turns needed to indicate amplitude.

I tried it for a few weeks. What was a real downside is that the tip of my finger got sorta friction burn from swiping too much. Maybe it was my cheapo phone screen, but it just wasn't working that well.

Overview video since site is down:<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&#38;v=99vsUF4NuLk" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&#38;v=9...</a>

What do people think of this? I feel like it's already made defunct by other options such as the SwiftKey Flow Beta. Not to mention the need to learn a whole new style of writing.

After trying most Android keyboard, I think the best and easiest way to write is using progressively-learning-predictive-technique like in SwiftKey.

I'm just getting "This application is temporarily over its serving quota. Please try again later." on all of the links.

Error<p>Over Quota<p>This application is temporarily over its serving quota. Please try again later.<p>Anyone care to share the direct YouTube links?

Guys, you killed their site.

I remember using this when Swype was just new. It is very unwieldy and I tried it for a week or two of heavy frustration.<p>The Gesture swiping built into 4.2 is hard to beat. Between the fast two handed operation with good correction and the freaky fast voice transcription, it's hard to want to deviate from the stock keyboard.<p>Honestly, the demo video makes it look <i>painfully</i> slow, even when he's doing a full demo sentence compared to what I'm used to.