Dryft Wants to Reinvent the Way We Type on Tablets
15th September 2013
That’s where Dryft’s special sauce comes into play. Instead of forcing users to acclimate to the keyboard layout of whatever touchscreen device they’re using, the Dryft keyboard appears on screen only when the user places their fingers on the display. In short, the home row (and by extension, the rest of the keyboard) follows your fingers no matter where you put them on the screen. Once your fingers have settled into a resting position, those home row keys appear under them and the rest of the keys blossom out around them.
Of course, this only works when (a) the person is already a trained touch-typist who can type accurately without looking at the keys and (b) the travel distance for this on-screen keyboard matches the ‘muscle memory’ of the typist. If you are accustomed to a full-sized keyboard and you’re typing on an iPad, for example, thinking you’re typing a ‘U’ and getting a ‘7’ instead all of the time will get old very very quickly.
Still, it’s a step in the right direction.