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Comment by awolf | Hacker News Reader

Then you're doing it wrong.

Either you don't use proper typing style on a physical keyboard (all 10 fingers, each responsible for a specific set of keys), or you haven't put the effort into adapting that typing style for virtual keyboards.

Typing is about training your muscle memory for each finger for each keystroke it could possible be responsible for. Once your muscle memory is trained, it becomes a subconscious skill that you should not need to concentrate on.

The fact that this muscle memory is being used on a virtual keyboard vs. a physical keyboard does not matter whatsoever. The same concept applies.

Edit: email me adam@flairify.com and I'll give you a free download for my paid typing trainer app. It works.

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Your response accounts only for one piece of the experience, which is the muscle memory. Perhaps you move like a robot, and muscle memory is enough for you to precisely strike the small tap targets of a keyboard, but you are off target to tell someone they are wrong based solely on that.

Tactile feedback is a big advantage to physical typing which allows you to know your fingers are in the right place prior to making a keystroke. Without it, you don't know until after the touch has registered. Ignoring that and saying it amounts to nothing is short sighted at best. Even beyond that, there are plenty of people who aren't that coordinated and/or stable, period, which amplifies this deficiency.

Additionally, this doesn't account for the fact that in most scenarios, the person using a mobile device is, in fact, mobile, and may not have a flat, stable area to place the device, but rather they are balancing it on their lap or holding it with one hand and typing with the other. Nor does it capture the fact that when you have the device in your lap, the screen isn't going to be at an ideal angle to view at the same time.

So sure, the same concept applies, but to pretend that the experience isn't inferior is just turning a blind eye to reality, imho.

I agree that tactile feedback is an advantage to physical typing. I'm not ignoring that aspect when I say that virtual keyboard typing is fine. Virtual keyboard typing is not as fast as physical keyboard typing. I type 80 WPM on a physical keyboard and 50 WPM on my iPad. It's slower... but fine.

My response to taude still stands. If you constantly need to concentrate on the act of typing then you need to train your muscle memory.

Or buy a Macbook Air.

Big fan of the MBA.

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