Easy Texting with Dextr
In this
raging era of mobile technology, all things are being extremely simplified. The
massive and complex computer technology has been brilliantly reduced to what we
call now a smartphone – a palm-size gadget that works wonders.
With the fast
emergence of smartphones all over the globe, the revolutionary touchscreen
technology has indeed helped smartphone users fulfil daily tasks right at the
palm of their hands.
In its
successful years, however, it seems that one crucial factor in the mobile
technology has been greatly overlooked – the QWERTY keyboard. As a result, the
smartphone was not so smart after all as it caused typographical errors and
autocorrect failures inconvenient to most mobile users.
From its
first introduction in the form of typewriters, the QWERTY keyboard has been
used, and has confused people, for more than a century. Brisbane-based
interface designer John Lambie seen this impediment rather as a challenge. His
solution is as basic as ABC. His solution is ABC.
Then came
Dextr, a touchscreen keyboard that follows the format of the roman alphabetical
order we know as ABC. Seeing the universal problem of the usability of the
QWERTY keyboard, Appalladium – John Lambie’s mobile app tech business founded
2011 – designed a simpler, smarter, and a faster way to efficiently use the
keyboard to its fullest potential.
Easy as ABC
Serving as
Dextr’s official tagline, the ABC we all know by heart structured the backbone
of the Dextr keyboard. With all keys arranged alphabetically, Dextr has aligned
all vowels vertically and has even highlighted them for prominence.
Dextr also boasts
of a wide array of layouts to suit your style and your gadget. It has two
layouts, adapting to which fingers you use for texting. If you’re a one-finger
texter, the 6x5 letter grid of the Fingerz
layout will help you type effortlessly even with just one finger in use!
If you’re
more efficient in typing by using both of your thumbs in texting, the Thumbz layout will surely work for you.
Still arranged alphabetically, the keyboard in this layout is split into two with
curved grids to match your thumb’s rapid movement.
The Dextr
keyboard also features two specialized modes that will suit whichever hand you
favour in texting. For right-handed people, the keyboard matches your dexterity
by aligning the vowels vertically and placing them to the area right under your
right index finger.
For
left-handed texters, the Dextr keyboard is simply the mirrored image of the
right-handed mode, with the vertically aligned vowelsdirectly under your left
index finger.
Intelligently designed
Dextr is also
created to adapt to multiple language dictionaries. Although it uses the Roman
(or Latin) as its default alphabet, Dextr has installed 12 languages which are already
available to all users. It includes: English (US & UK), Spanish (both LA
and ES), Portuguese (both PT and BR), Bahasa Indonesia & Melayu, Filipino
(Tagalog), Tieng Viet, French, German, Italian, Turkish, Polish, and Hausa.
With its
dream to abridge digital divide by extending access to all, Dextr will soon
include Swahili, Hinglish, Benglish, and Chinese (Pinyin) to its growing roster
of language dictionaries.
Dextr is even
more intelligent with its advanced word suggestion function where you can add
new words to your personal dictionary and detects common phrases and word
orders (Word completion and word correction + auto correction) and suggests the
next word even before you’ve finished typing it (Next word prediction).
As you use it
more often, the Dextr keyboard learns your common words & phrases,
improving its word prediction into an advanced level.
Effortlessly Faster
Unlike the
usual smartphone keyboard with compact and narrow letter keys, the Dextr
keyboard has finger-friendly keys which were measured to help you type with
ease and speed. The letter keys are specially designed to match our fingertip’s
size and shape, and has provided a finger-width space between letter keys.
The Dextr Difference
These
optimisations have even helped larger, and special sectors in the societies
that takes typing a great challenge. To kids, the
alphabetical arrangement is a head start to a simple and efficient learning and
memory.
With a
special mode for left-handers, Dextr has addressed the need of the 15% of
left-handed people –which is over a billion of us – in the planet to
effectively use the smartphone and type with greater ease and confidence.
The Dextr
keyboard and its various layouts and modes also helps smartphone users with
disability. With millions of us having varying levels of impairments, the
optimisations of the Dextr keyboard alleviates their typing anxieties. Now
that’s Dextr difference!
Intended to
make our lives easier and more productive, smartphones are now even better with
the Dextr keyboard technology that is simple, smarter, and faster. Dextr is
free and available for download in Google Play. Who says texting can’t be as
easy as ABC?
Nice post :-) I think it's about time that people should know about Dextr. I've been using it for a while and I can attest to it's reliability unlike QWERTY. I've been a heavy-PC user and yet I get confused when typing with QWERTY on my mobile device. I switched to Dextr and I've been a faster texter. The buttons are easier to spot, Its functions keys are very effective and it makes me type lesser because of the predictions. Everybody should try it!!
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