Do on-screen keyboards change the way we write?

Image via Flickr Creative Commons
(Caleb Roenigk) 

Image via Wikimedia under by Creative Commons
by  Matt Buchanan. Originally posted to Flickr

On the bus last week, I was standing behind someone typing on a tablet. She was using the on-screen touchpad keyboard. Not that I was spying or anything (honest!), I watched how she typed an accented é: she touched the e “key” for an slightly extended time—less than a second—until a menu of accented characters appeared on the screen above the keypad, then slid her finger to her choice.

Seeing it in action started me thinking: is on-screen typing, as done on touch-screen computers, changing the way we write?

We all learn to write, or print, with a stylus directly marking a surface: pencil on paper, crayon on colouring book, brush on parchment. 

Since the invention of the typewriter in the 1860s, the technology of writing has been a kind of remote control, separating the action of our fingers from the results. Press a key on a typewriter, and the attached type bar strikes the ribbon and impresses it onto the paper. 

Since then, typing technological development has progressively increased the distance between actions and results. To create this post, I am tapping my fingers on a wireless keyboard. I can’t imagine how many digital transformations occur to make the characters I am typing appear on the screen in front of my eyes. It’s only after I hit the Print button that the printer, two metres from the keyboard, puts marks on paper.

But I won’t print this particular essay. I’ll edit and proofread it on-screen, and then post it on this blog, hosted on a server hundreds or thousands of kilometres from this screen and keyboard. Or maybe it’s next door—I have no way of knowing. 

Image via Flickr Creative Commons
(Stan Wiechers)

Closing the gap between action and consequence

Typing on a touch screen brings actions closer to results. There is still a separation, of course, as the keypad is at the bottom of the screen and the words may be at the top, but still, it’s closer than the typewriter allowed.

Standing on the bus in rush hour, I was fascinated by the woman typing on the touch-screen. I wondered: is her writing experience different?

Personally, I don’t like typing on a touch screen. There is no physical or kinetic feedback from a touch screen, unlike with a keyboard, where I can feel the key depress and spring back. 

Also, using the touch pad on my iPad shrinks the display of the writing I’m doing. I like to be able to see the words I’ve written. So I have a Bluetooth keyboard to write with my iPad, re-establishing that remote action of the old-fashioned typewriter.

An area to research

Does bringing the result, the mark on the writing surface, closer to the motion of our fingers make typing on a touch screen closer to writing with a pencil on paper?

And if it does, will that have an effect on the way that we write? Will it affect the words we choose, the way we construct phrases and sentences?

Will we be able to tell a book written on a touch-screen from a book created with a typewriter?

I can imagine someone getting a doctoral degree on this by analyzing documents written with a stylus on paper with those created on a computer using a standard word processor, and others written using a touch screen. And I’d be fascinated to see the results.

What do you think? If you use a touch screen for anything, do you find the writing experience different? Do you like typing on a touch screen?

Do you think that the touch screen changes the way you write?

Where have all the newspapers gone?

You just don't see this anymore. Photo by Travis Ruse, cropped by Gallifreyan Postman at en.wikipedi
alicensed under Creative Commons

It's fascinating to see a long-range social and economic transformation take place before your eyes. Particularly in as mundane a place as a city bus. 

I believe in public transit, and I've used it regularly for years. Decades, actually. Yes, I'm old. Twenty years ago, even ten, a newspaper was a common sight on buses, metros and commuter trains. In the 80s and 90, when I lived in Toronto, a newspaper was a requirement for any commuter who wanted to be taken seriously. And any professional with any kind of social ability knew to read the Globe and Mail, or if you really wanted to make an impression, the Wall Street Journal.

Today on the busses in Ottawa, I rarely see a newspaper. If I do, it's probably Metro or another of the free circulation, newswire-copying rags. And while those were somewhat popular a year ago, these days I almost never see anyone even carrying one of those. I don't even see them discarded on the bus seats anymore.

The only newspapers that seem to be hanging on or
growing their circulation are the free daily commuter
papers, like the London Evening Standard or, in
Canada, Metro and 24 Hours. And 24 Hour cancelled
its Ottawa edition last year. Photo courtesy Adam
Tinworth, OneManAndHisBlog.com

This is just my personal view of the huge socio-economic transformation, the decline of the newspaper in the West. In Canada, the US and the UK, newspaper circulations have fallen steadily in the past five or six years, up to 30 percent or more. Newspapers are closing down or merging. Community newspapers have become nothing more than reprinters of centrally-produced fluff.

These trends may not seem new to you, but consider the size of the newspaper industry just two decades ago. The Internet was just starting to scare the traditional media industries, but newspapers and magazines, too, were fat and getting fatter. 

The recession of the early 90s killed off a lot of magazines and page counts of all print publications stated a decline that never recovered. The 2008 economic crash killed five magazines that I used to contribute to regularly. Another symptom of this transformation. 

And its name is ...

The Internet, of course, but particularly, mobile communications. The snide comeback of the print professional to the Internet used to  be that paper is both a reliable storage and display medium, and it's portable — unlike computers. 

And then came the iPad.

On the bus today, I see three people reading books — yes, real paper books, and one of them is a hardcover — and, no surprise, five or six e-readers like Kobos and Kindles. Oh, yes, and my iPad. 

Then there are people looking at their smart phones. Some of them are playing games, but most are going through emails or messages or tweets.

This is usual in 2014. It's a surprise to see anyone reading a paper.

What does it mean?

It means that, at least for commuters from western Ottawa today, the newspaper is irrelevant. Or at least not essential, not like it was two decades ago.

And given newspaper circulation statistics, I suspect the same is true in other modern cities in first world nations.

What do we do?

As communications professionals, we have to recognize that the market has voted for mobile communications and has dropped the newsprint medium, at least for daily news and the kind of specialized information that magazines are good at delivering.

So we have to start to adapt our communications to fit the demands of mobile communications technology — and more to the point, to the audience that uses it.

This is the format we have to work with today. Get used
to it!

Whether we produce fiction, news, non-fiction, technical reports or whatever, we need to be aware that the reader is experiencing it through a small screen — a fairly restrictive medium.

As a writer concerned with craft and the beauty of language, I'm not thrilled about reducing all writing to bullet points and headings. But the reality is that audiences demand, shorter texts, broken into easily consumed chunks. The buzzword today is "consumable information."

And using graphics and motion video really boosts attention, circulation and retention of information. While it may irk you that a twelve-year-old's cat video gets more play than your world-saving treatise, gimmicks have always been effective in any medium.

Look ahead

In ten more years, there will still be newspapers. But they'll be smaller in size and circulation. 

It will be interesting to see what e-books will be like. Will they all include multimedia? I find it hard to believe that motion and graphics will not be standard in text communications.

Nothing is going away. We still have radio. It's just been transformed by all the media that came after it. 

We have another learning slope ahead of us.

Communicator's Toolbox review: Belkin's Ultimate Keyboard and Case for iPad

The Communicator's Toolbox

One of the original goals of this blog was to review technology developed for professional communicators. While I have reviewed digital cameras, laser and inkjet printers, software and even the iPad 2, it's been a long time since I've focused on the writer's tools.

I've been using the Belkin cover/keyboard combination for about a month, now, since the company sent me a demo at my request for a review model. Overall, I have to say I'm thrilled with it.

I got my iPad2 about two years ago, just before a trip to Austria and Switzerland. With it, I bought a Kensington KeyFolio case with an integrated Bluetooth keyboard for two reasons: first, I wanted a sturdy protective carrying case for the iPad; and second, I wanted a real keyboard, as opposed to a virtual one.

Compared to Kensington case

The Kensington KeyFolio fulfilled its purposes well. Its tough synthetic leather construction has protected the iPad well. However, Kensington made some compromises with the keyboard to get it to fit in a space the same width as the iPad itself. There is only one Shift key, for example, and the apostrophe/foot mark key is one row lower than on the standard QWERTY keyboard.

Those don't seem like huge issues, but it took me a while to get used to it. Only after I started using that keyboard did I realize that I use both Shift keys, depending on which letter I'm trying to capitalize. Also, getting a semi-colon every time I expected an apostrophe was annoying.

The other drawback to the KeyFolio was its size. The synthetic leather is pretty thick. I thought at first that would be a better protector for the fragile-looking iPad. But the KeyFolio makes the iPad a bulky device, hard to put into an already overstuffed briefcase.

It's also heavier. At 567 grams (1.25 pounds), the KeyFolio is almost as heavy as the iPad2's 601 grams (1.33 pounds). Suddenly, I was toting over a kilogram of tablet computer — heavier than a MacBook Air laptop computer.

The new protector

I heard about the Belkin Ultimate Keyboard Case for the iPad through a press release in my Mailbox (I get a LOT of press releases). When the item itself arrived, I was instantly delighted. Belkin designed the case to preserve the iPad's thin profile and form factor — two of its main selling points.
The base is made of aluminum alloy, and it's so thin, it's almost not there. Belkin says the keyboard is only 6.4 mm thick. The top is a textured rubber-like substance that provides adequate protection, at least in my experience so far. It has holes for the iPad's switches, camera, and earbud and power ports.


One of my greatest fears since getting
my iPad2.
Image source: laptoprepairleyland.co.uk 


Open it up and that same rubbery material is the hinge that attaches the two halves of the case: the rubber-backed shell that holds the iPad itself, and the aluminum-backed keyboard half. This is the only part that worries me — the rubber is very flexible and I always imagine it tearing.

But this flexibility is one of the great features of the case. On the keyboard side, above the keyboard itself, are three magnetic strips that hold the iPad up at your choice of three angles.
Belkin also uses the magnetism to power off and on the iPad when you close the case, just like with Apple's own tri-fold iPad cover.

A fully functional keyboard

The keyboard is smaller than the standard for a desktop computer, of course, to match the width of the iPad itself (or height, depending on how you hold it: 24.1 cm or 9.5 inches), but the layout is the QWERTY standard. It has two Shift keys, as well as Command, Option/Alt, and Fn keys. Overall, the typing experience on it is not much different from typing on a desktop computer's keyboard, except that the keys are a little closer together. The keys click satisfyingly when you depress them — unlike the standard Apple keyboard.

Drawbacks

The aluminum back is prone to scratching, like all aluminum. After a month, there are several noticeable scratches and scuff marks on mine, and I don't consider myself a rough user. The hardest surfaces my iPad has touched are desks and tables, and the inside of my briefcase or pannier saddlebags.
Getting my iPad into the case was tricky, and getting it out again almost as hard. However, I can't imagine when that would be necessary.

Bottom line

Belkin's Ultimate Keyboard Case for the iPad is a great accessory for the professional communicator who wants to use the iPad — or for anyone who uses the iPad, travels or commutes with it, prefers a physical keyboard and is as worried about dropping or damaging the iPad itself. It's very lightweight, almost unnoticeable in my hands. It doesn't interfere with the operation of the iPad at all. In fact, I typed this review on my Belkin Keyboard Case. Plus, it provides peace of mind about damaging the tablet.
While it is prone to scuffs, it has protected my iPad. For a hundred bucks, no iPad owner should be without one.

Find out more on Belkin's site: www.belkin.com/us/p/P-F5L149

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Update from my book signing event!

I thought I had sent this post yesterday from my iPad, but Google and Apple don't play nicely together. See the note at the end of the post.

Here are my two lovely assistants at my book signing event: my boys, Nicolas and Evan. This is my second post today from Gaia Java in Stittsville, so I'm going to use a different approach this time.
 
How is the signing going, you ask? (Yes, I can hear you — there's an App for that). There's a little lull now, but I had a small crowd up to about a half-hour ago. Some friends dropped in, had some coffee, talked about books and kids and cars. I spoke to a couple of readers and gave away some copies of my short story, Sam, the Strawb Part. 

It's thrilling to be autographing copies of your book — I have never felt like that before. Now, the crowds have died away; I'm waiting for the next rush to come, the people who need their afternoon coffee. Maybe I'll meet some more readers. I won't hope for more sales — I've had more than most authors get in one day at this kind of event. But I won't turn them down, either.

The technological side 

The last post, I wrote the text in a word processor, then copied and pasted it into Google's Blogger app. I could also add a picture or two, taken with my iPad2. That part worked fairly well, although the resolution is not great because of the iPad2's (the "old" iPad, now) rudimentary camera.

The Blogger app is not very good. It's designed for use on a phone, and the iPad version does not use the whole screen — just a little rectangle in the middle. There isn't enough room to see much of what you write. The onscreen keyboard — well, let's just say that it's a good thing I have the Kensington Bluetooth keyboard synced to the iPad.

This time, I'm using the old-fashioned approach of emailing the post to my Blogger account. It takes more planning, because you cannot attach a picture to the email from within the iPad. If you want a picture, you have to open it in Photos, select Email Picture, and add the post as a caption.

 Enough for now. I'll be here for another hour, so as the celebs on all the talk shows say, if you're in town, come and see me.

One last technological note:

 Live blogging from the iPad has a number of holes in it. I tried, twice, to send this post from my iPad. Doing that requires a double work-around.

First, for remomte blogging, Blogger requires that you set up a special email account in Blogger; type your text into the email, put the title as the Subject line, and email it to this special address, and the content goes to your Drafts folder. Then you can edit it.

However, on Safari on the iPad, you cannot select a photo from the camera roll or anywhere else in the iPad. So if you want to put a picture, you have to use the second work-around, this one imposed by Apple: select the photo in the Photos app, select E-mail Photo, address it to your Blogger account and add your text in the body of the email below the picture. This does not give you the option to format the picture in any way, however. I suppose if you had a Picasa account, you could include the photo in your blog by selecting its URL, but you can't do that with Photostream, because Apple likes to keep those URLs secret.

So there, two work arounds, but in this case, they didn't work. I thought I had updated the blog yesterday afternoon, but no — all I got, instead of a new post, was a single photo in the Drafts folder. I have had to edit it in HTML mode in Safari on my iPad, because for some reason, I cannot add text in the Compose mode.

Here's a recommendation to Google and Apple: play nicely together.

Sent from my iPad, then finalized on my desktop.