iPhone vs Android, and onscreen keyboard plus predictive text

[Kadarin]

Thanks to circumstances beyond my control, I have had to replace my Droid with an iPhone 4. Aside from the, er, stellar service from AT&T, I'd have to say that the keyboard plus the predictive text are my biggest complaints about the iPhone, and I was wondering if there were known third-party apps that address these.

#1: The keyboard

On the droid, when texting and writing mails via the onscreen keyboard, the period and comma punctuation marks were on the same screen as the letters (in Android 2.2 "Froyo" the comma was replaced with the microphone button). In iOS 4, you have to first hit the punctuation key, then you get the second key screen with many of the common punctuation characters. For this reason, texting is faster and less irritating on Android.

#2: Predictive text

Here Android is light years ahead of Apple in terms of usability. With Android, I'm not fighting the phone in terms of what it thinks I'm typing. I can type in as few as two characters, and the screen gives me a number of choices as to what possible words I could be typing in. With iOS, I need to be almost done with the word, and with one or two characters to go it gives me one option that I have to consciously opt out of. Android's predictive text algorithm is also more conscious of the entire word, whereas iOS gets completely confused if I mistype the first couple of characters.

So, is anyone here also annoyed by the above, and if so, have you found apps for the iphone that improve the user experience?

 

[Kmax82]

If you go into Settings and then Keyboard.. you can set the option to allow for a double press of the spacebar to insert a period. This is immensely helpful when typing.

As for the predictive text, iOS4 added spell checking which has totally mucked it up. With 4.1 you can now turn it off. I recommend doing that and seeing if it helps at all.

There might be a few jailbreak apps that will fix/modify what you're looking for, but nothing that's in the AppStore.

 

[dlock13]

However, when it all comes down to it, the iPhone has THE best precision. It knows where you're typing usually and what you're typing. I type insanely fast on my Droid X, and on the iPhone, I can type a little bit faster which isn't much to say the least but it's more than enough.

 

[Rottie]

I dont have any complain with iOS 4.1 predictive text because I am very patience person when I type it gives me some guessing text and also after I am done with typing there is red dotted underline misspelled word and offered me with correct replaced word.
If you dont understand my english grammer just because I am deaf I am not perfect!

 

[VashHT]

I had the opposite experience, my ihpone 4 gets it right more often than my EVO does and I make a lot less mistakes with my iphone 4. The overall accuracy on the iphone wins for me, I can type a lot faster with it and make a lot less mistakes on the iphone than the EVO despite it having a much smaller screen.

I haven't tried changing the keyboard at all but I did notice they have themes for it in Cydia, I'm not sure if you can change it so that the comma is up front. The double tap space bar trick is really nice though saves a lot of time.

 

[Ns1]

If you go into Settings and then Keyboard.. you can set the option to allow for a double press of the spacebar to insert a period. This is immensely helpful when typing.

do this immediately.

 

[Spineshank]

I always found the iphone keyboard better than any keyboard ive ever used on an android. I currently swap between Swype, Better Keyboard, and Smart Keyboard..ive also used the Droid X keyboard.