the flairify blog

James Kendrick with jkOnTheRun surprised us with a review of TapTyping. A choice snippet:

I have only spent a short time with TapTyping but find my skill is already improving. I intend to go through the whole program and see how fast I can get using the on-screen keys.

James writes a ton about mobile technology and really knows his stuff. For this reason we are ecstatic to have him working through our training course. We can’t wait to hear how much faster he gets!

Many reviewers use a hunt-and-peck typing style and then complain that the iPad virtual keyboard is slow and awkward. Gee… I wonder why?

We made this quick 4 minute video to show people the proper way to type on the iPad. 

Janie gets up to 81 words per minute in this video. If you can beat her send us a video to claim the high score.

A couple of sites have surprised us with unexpected coverage.

A huge thanks to Amit Bhawani and ShortFormBlog for featuring us and getting the word out about how we can enhance the iPad experience.

They may have kept it… short, but it’s great to see that people are beginning to notice TapTyping! http://shortformblog.com/tech/want-to-become-a-better-ipad-touch-typist-use-t…

Olver Drobnik, a.k.a. Dr. Touch, has shared our project with his readers. It’s a pretty good read so I won’t spoil it.

Check it out.

The first review of TapTyping has been published.

He like-ee.

Check out Chris’ post here and then go get TapTyping!

Andy Ihnatko’s review of the iPad is now up on the SunTimes.com website. It sounds like the iPad really clicked for him. From the way he describes it I don’t think he could ever go without his iPad after using it for just one week.

Andy gave the virtual keyboard some great compliments as well:

Apple did a fantastic job with the iPad’s virtual keyboard. It rolls into view when needed. My expectations were set pretty low; I anticipated that it’d be handy for typing in URLs at minimum and short emails at best. But gorblimey: I can actually touch-type at a respectable clip on it. The keyboard is larger than most physical netbook keyboards and auto-correct will fix most of the clumsiness that comes from not being able to feel what you’re typing.

It’s a big deal to know that you can really write and work with this thing even when you only intended to just enjoy your coffee and read. I can, and have, written thousand-word articles with the virtual keyboard.

Full article here.

I’ve created a preview video of TapTyping to give everyone an idea of what our curriculum is like:

This is my first time creating a video preview and I’m realizing that it might be time for a new laptop. About a minute or two into the video my MacBook Pro sounded like it was getting ready to launch into space.

Is there anything I didn’t cover in the video that you would like to know?

Our website has been deployed at www.flairify.com.

Thanks to our friend Charles Lam (@cheez80) for his help with the design.

Let us know what you think. If you don’t like it, Charles has some ‘splainin to do…

Tim Gideon at PC Magazine published an extensive review of the iPad yesterday. His take on the virtual keyboard? The fact that he wrote the entire review on the iPad itself is a good sign:

As someone who’s all thumbs when it comes to iPhone’s tiny on-screen keyboard, I wondered if the iPad’s larger keyboard would help me master this touch screen typing thing. In a word: Yes. I’m writing this review on the iPad’s horizontal keyboard, in which the keys are large and nicely spaced. (The vertical keyboard is a little tighter, but still definitely useable.) If it weren’t comfortable, I would have abandoned the iPad for my laptop 1,000 words ago.

One tidbit that we found interesting:

Apple anticipates more than 1,000 iPad apps in addition to the over 150,000 currently available for the iPhone and iPod touch

The conclusion?

These [camera, flash, multitasking] are all valid complaints, but one thing I can say about most Apple products, and certainly the iPad: There may be things it doesn’t do, but what it does do, it does remarkably well. Aside from the aforementioned limitations, there isn’t a lot else to gripe about. And to my great surprise, you can actually get real work done with the iPad.

Full review here.