October Novel Prep Challenge

http://www.swype.com/

It came as an automatic update to my Android phone, so I assumed it was a Google product, since Android = Google. But I was wrong, and it looks like it's not available for iPad:

http://www.swype.com/about/swype-faq-3/

There may be a similar product for Apple. It's pretty awesome, except for the typos. You lay your finger on the first letter of the word and swipe to each consecutive letter in the word, just by swish-swish-swishing your finger across the keyboard from letter to letter. It does have typos, but the accuracy is very high.It's much faster than typing one letter at a time by tapping. When tapping, you often miss the letter you aimed for, whereas if you miss a letter in Swype (say you aimed for the "j" but didn't quite make it, so really you bumped h or k instead), it's smart enough to figure out what you meant. That's because you swipe one word at a time (instead of tapping one letter at a time), so it assumes you meant the closest word it can find it its dictionary. Also, swiping is a more fluid motion, so it's quicker, and when you lift your finger between words, it knows to insert a space.

Some flaws: It doesn't know most proper names (unless they're in your address book), so you have to type those by tapping letters. It also does make incorrect assumptions about what you meant to say. If you're in the swipe-swipe-swipe zone try to swipe "Crys" before you remember Swype won't recognize it, you'll find it changed to "crystal" or "cries" (thanks, Swype), which means you have to backspace and correct it. The backspacing can get annoying. You really can't *not edit* (NaNo style) because it's not just typos, sometimes it's whole incorrect words that make the sentence so confusing you forget what you were trying to write. A common example: "gave" and "have" are often mixed up. Drives me BATTY.

As usually with all things Google-related, I expect a better revision soon.

Regards,
Michelle