Typing for me has long been a part of my life and I have seen this skill move from completely inaccurate and slow to speedy and accurate using a computer’s keyboard.

25 years of work, all of which has involved computers in one way or another, has left me able to type without thinking about where the letters are in a QWERTY keyboard and I believe this programming of my sub conscience has been helped on by the fact that keyboards never change.

This statement however is not true in the world of mobile phones.

The History of Typing on a Mobile Phone

I remember seeing the introduction of text messaging, which believe or not was only available to people on the same network, and letters were entered by repeatedly pressing the numbers to get the desired letter printed on that button.

Next came predictive text on that same alpha-numeric keyboard. By this time I was already working in the mobile phone industry, face-to-face with customers and mobile phones each day. I was a bit of a tech geek so many customers came to me by referral and the daily schedule of typing on mobile phones or entering settings made me extremely quick at typing.

Here though my personal story takes a dive as miniature QWERTY keyboards and virtual QWERTY keyboards were introduced and one-finger operation was only possible. Several years on I decided it was time to take action and I have been amazed at the selection of keyboard apps that can revolutionise the way you type and add speed back into the process.

Keyboard Apps

Swype for Android – This is by far my favourite keyboard app and the one I use day-to-day. If you have an Android phone on v4.2 or above then this is already built-in but other phones can download this from Google Play.

To use this keypad simply slide your finger from one letter to the next and Swype predicts the word. Simply not lifting your finger from the screen seems to be a remarkable concept for typing quickly and it’s amazing that you don’t even need to be very accurate with your finger swipe to get the right words.

When you have finished typing your desired word simply lift the finger from the screen and start again. Swype knows that a space is required and enters this automatically so you do not even need to tap the space bar.

Dvorak Keyboard – The Dvorak Keyboard has been around for decades but you are unlikely to have ever seen one. The basic layout looks the same but if you take a closer look you will notice that all of the letters are in different places.

The basic principal to the layout has been to place the most commonly used letters on the same row and thus reduce the amount of movement between letters when typing. You can learn the Dvorak keyboard in one third of the time it would take to learn the QWERTY layout so this is an interesting option that is worth experimenting with.

Other keyboard apps that can be downloaded onto smartphones take a more radical approach to speed typing so if you are feeling a little adventurous then there is plenty to explore on you quest to faster typing.