The folks at TouchPal are working on a new keyboard app for Google Android called TouchPal Input, and it has some pretty cool new features. While the original version of TouchPal included some excellent predictive text and error correction, the new version has a feature called TouchPal Curve which takes a cue from the popular Swype keyboard.
TouchPal Curve will allow you to enter text by dragging your finger from one letter to the next without lifting it from the screen. This allows you to enter some words much more quickly using a single finger or thumb than you could by tapping away with two thumbs.
But things get more interesting when you add TouchPal’s text prediction technology. It’s easy to lose your place when trying to enter a really long word with Swype — I’ve found myself having to start over enough times that I sometimes find Swype to be slower than the stock Android keyboard. With TouchPal, you can slide your fingers across the first few letters and then look at the suggestions that pop up and tap on the appropriate word.
You can also type the old fashioned way by tapping away at the keys, and TouchPal’s predictive text will speed things up by finishing your words for you.
The keyboard will also use this technology to correct mistakes. So if you accidentally hit a key to the left or right of the key you were aiming for, TouchPal will try to guess what word you were trying to form and enter it anyway. The idea is that this could make it easier to enter text without looking at the keyboard at all.
The new version of TouchPal Input is in private beta testing, but you can try to snag an invite by following TouchPal on Twitter or checking out a reddit thread.
