A little over a month ago, I purchased my first smartphone, a Nexus One. I’m on AT&T so I could have gone the iPhone route but I chose Android. I didn’t choose it because of any strong feelings about which OS or hardware was better. I did it because of how they approach developers. The Android OS allows any part of it to be replaced. iPhone jealously guards its core functionality. It is in the terms that no app can duplicate Apple functionality. Apple fanboys might say that this doesn’t matter because Apple’s implementation is far better than anything anyone else might come up with anyway. To them I submit these examples of keyboard innovation.
This is swiftkey. It’s just a regular keyboard but the text prediction software is much better than the standard library on either the Android or iOS. This is because it doesn’t just use the first few letters of the word you’re typing. It actually reads it in the context of the previous words typed. And it learns based on your past typing history what phrases you tend to use.
This is Swype. Swype makes your typing faster by removing the need to pick up your finger. You just trace a path that intersects all the letters in the word you want and Swype will determine what word the path corresponds to. Once you get used to it this is much faster than conventional key tapping.
These innovative keyboards might never have happened on the iPhone. If all OSes were as closed as iOS then the only option for these software vendors would be to develop their product without knowing if it would ever find its way onto a phone. Unable to even load their software onto a phone without root. Then hope that they get the attention of Apple and get acquired, form a partnership, or license their technology.
Thanks to Android however they have options. They can partner with manufacturers to get their software installed on phones. They can release apps out to be installed via the much less restrictive Android Marketplace or even downloaded and installed outside of the Marketplace. These apps can be used to replace the default keyboard at the user’s request, drastically changing the user experience. Maybe once they’re proven the technologies used will even be incorporated into the default build.
What would happen if there wasn’t an open alternative to iOS? We wait. Either for Apple to develop these ideas themselves or for someone to make the investment with no guarantee that anyone will ever use the technologies being developed unless Apple deigns to notice them. I’m thankful that there’s an open alternative for these people to get their ideas out there. And I’m thankful that Apple has some real competition in Android. The pace of innovation just wouldn’t be the same otherwise.
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