:: Way cool product - FASTAP!!! ::
Today I met with one of the guys from DigitWireless. I previously blogged about their incredibly clever keyboard design, which they've trade marked as "Fastap".
Today I saw it, played with it, loved it! I not only played with the neat demo model, an anonymous phone mock-up with the Fastap keyboard, but touched and felt a production-ready unit under test by the operators (can't say who - sworn to secrecy).
Only when playing with the keys did I at last appreciate the genius of the design. Its simplicity was shaking; its inventor sure has ergonomic insight. The principle is that the letter keys are raised above the phone face, like "hills", and the digit keys are sunk in between, like "valleys". That bit I understood already. Each raised key has enough space around it to more or less (a little less) occupy the space of a key on a qwerty keyboard, believe it or not! The finger does not clumsily hit the numeric keys by mistake, as these are sunk, or so they seem, as, in fact, there's no need for a key there at all. I loved that magic bit! By placing the finger on the sunken "valley", over the desired digit key, the finger can't help but depressing some combination of the surrounding raised "hill" keys and the software picks up the combination and knows how to map it to the desired digit. Genius!
So what's my reaction? Is this another tech idea that has no real application? Absolutely not! This idea must surely come to fruition and I can feel that it has the potential to become commonplace. The reason is that we are not just talking about a better way to text. Actually, it is a better way to text, especially for those of us who cannot get to grips with predictive text (PT) input. I confess that I am a good user of PT, until I hit a word that's not in the dictionary, or I want to deliberately abbreviate. However, most people I know don't use PT, or find it somehow clumsy, although, to be fair, I think it is very phone dependent (T68i is one of the best implementations I’ve seen).
The reason that Fastap could be in demand is the gathering interest in Wireless Instant Messaging. Certainly, new initiatives, like Wireless Village (and the PAM forum entering Parlay) are generating momentum towards a big push for IM into the wireless space, but we seem to overlook the not-so-small problem of boringly slow typists – and that’s talking about QWERTY users! I would like to use IM on my phone, but it’s just too frustratingly cumbersome. Fastap could change that. If it does, then I think it will be a winner and could well assist IM take-off, along with email of course, which is the other mobile service still waiting to gather momentum, though it’s problems are not just character entry, but often poor usability, full stop.
I just emailed some of my contacts in the industry to look at Fastap. I think it should be a winner.
7:09:51 PM 
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