1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to data processing systems and, in particular, to personal computing devices. Still more particularly, the present invention provides a method, apparatus, and program for improved user input on personal computing devices.
2. Description of Related Art
Mobile computing devices, such as mobile phones, hand-held computers, and personal digital assistants, are now ubiquitous in today's society. These devices now typically have processors, memory, and storage that provide users with computing power nearly on par with that of desktop computers. Many users find, however, that the primary drawback of such devices is that of the input mechanisms. Manual entry of any significant amount of data into a mobile phone or personal digital assistant (PDA) is certainly a non-trivial task.
Text input is typically accomplished by one of three input mechanisms. A first text input mechanism is a hardware key mechanism. Mobile phones usually have a numeric keypad with which users may enter textual characters using combinations of button presses. This method of input is slow and cumbersome, since the task of entering a long string of text requires a considerable number of button presses. Other mobile computing devices include a full keyboard. However, with the small size of the device itself, the size and spacing of the keys renders the keyboard difficult to manipulate.
Many mobile computing devices include a touch screen display device and a stylus that may be used to manipulate graphical elements on the display. Some attempts have been made to allow users to use handwritten characters on the touch screen display with varying degrees of success. Graffiti® is a handwriting recognition mechanism that recognizes simplified gestures for textual characters. Still, the user must write individual characters and the recognition mechanism has limited success.
Some mobile computing devices provide a “virtual” keyboard that presents a miniature version of a keyboard on a touch screen. The user may then use keyboard layout to tap the virtual keys to enter text. However, tapping the keys remains a tedious hunt-and-tap operation using a stylus, which is not as natural as two-handed typing on a full size keyboard. Furthermore, the user must successfully depress each key individually by tapping with the stylus. This operation is tedious and difficult for many users.