I was missing Swype and other input thoughts.

So I was using Swype on my phone for a while before I installed CM10. I have read that it installs on the Galaxy Nexus that is running CM10, but I was unable to get it to install on my One S running CM10.

Swype was one of the best apps that I have ever used, it makes the phone usable when inputting large amounts of text.

Overall CM10 is working out well, I like the clean look and consistency of the stock interface, sense is just too much "bling" and "oooh shiny" for my liking. HTC in my opinion makes great hardware and one of the better software addon packs, but it is not to my taste.

LibreOffice looks like it is coming to android which is awesome, so technologies like Swype will become more important as we move towards an ever increasing mobile lifestyle. Add on devices will never be popular, carrying keyboards and other devices along with your phone will never really take off, having just the phone will be the main usage mode. Therefore new interface techniques will become more and more important.

Swype takes the pain of typing on a small screen and turns most of your input to gesture based input. This is a great idea, I tried 8pen and I really liked the idea of gesture based input. The issue with 8pen is the learning curve is way too steep, after typing on a physical keyboard (as a programmer) for years moving to the 8pen interface was too much of a mission. I was getting quite competent at using it after a few weeks, but I could never give my phone to a friend to send a text or search the web without switching back to the standard keyboard. Swype allows for the "hunt and peck" style of typing and also the time to teach someone to "Swype" is minimal. I taught my boss (in his 50's) to "Swype" in less then a minute.

As I finished typing this I thought yea, I will try to install it again (for about the tenth time)....it has started downloading....never got this far before....here is hoping. Maybe Swype has updated the installer for better Jellybean integration. Unfortunately the installer gets to the end of the downloading bar and just stops there, but after about 5 minutes the install dialogue pops up. Once installed I got kicked back to the downloading screen. I closed the app when to the "Language and Input" settings and selected the Swype beta keyboard and selected the input method form the notification area when typing something.

I have watched the video at AndroidAuthority on keyboards, they review the Adaptxt vs SlideIT vs SwiftKey vs The stock keyboard. I don't know why they didn't review Swype vs these other keyboards as I think it would have beaten then quite well.

So I got an HTC One S

I have had my new phone for a week now.over all it is really nice. The hardware is really good, I love the feel of it.

Having the bigger screen is great, it is super clear and bright compared to my old nexus one.

On the software side it is a bit of a learning curve coming from Cyanogenmod 7 to sense 4. Sense isn't bad, but I'm used to the more open nature of CM. My brother had the nexus S, android 4 is really nice and I want something close to that. I also feel that sense of slowing the phone down, the animations are nice but I always prefer function over form.

Once there is an official Cyanogenmod port for the One S I will install it, this phone is a bit new for that yet. I really like that HTC makes unlocking the bootloader quite easy. Just go to www.HTCdev.com and follow the instructions.

I also just got the Swype beta, out is absolutely awesome. It makes typing on my phone fast and easy, I have typed this whole post on my phone, I would never have done this with the standard keyboard.when Swype comes out of beta I will buy it. The link below will take you to the Swype website, follow the instructions to install it.

http://www.swype.com/get-swype/how-do-i-get-swype/