Makes me wonder how many other interfaces are horribly wrong because everyone has just accepted them. I didn't really think there would be many ways to interact with a smartwatch besides touchscreen and side buttons. And then someone played DOOM on one better than I could do it on my Android phone. Reminds me of how I felt when I first saw pinch to zoom on a capacitive touch screen and realized that it was so natural.
I think one area where people are always doing experiments like this is Android soft keyboards. I've seen so many wacky ways to input text, and some actually work pretty well.
Also today MSFT announced that keyboard research project with gestures, good day for alternative interfaces.
Agreed, what it made me really stop and question is why we DON'T do this with smartphones already and it's because there is no fixed base relative to which we can twist/nudge the screen (as well as a smartphone being too big to be properly grasp-able on all sides for these kind of motions).
Also, it's no coincidence that this and the MSFT keyboard are in the news now, as CHI 2014 (the big Human-Computer Interaction conference) is ongoing now in Toronto: http://chi2014.acm.org
I feel like "flick input" for Japanese on smartphones is actually very very intuitive once you get used to it. I think it will adapt well to this interface too.
I've been wondering lately if someone could adapt it to English, with perhaps phonetic groups? Lit swype - it's tricky when you first try it, but soon becomes second nature.
MessageEase[0] is remarkably similar. Instead of phonetic groups, it puts the most used letters in the easiest locations. With practice, I got my typing speed up to about 40 WPM on it, but I ultimately switched back to Google Keyboard due to the lack of a good autocorrect and prediction system.
The input system plays on this in that each set has a button, which you press and then release or swipe in one of four directions - thus giving the 5 possible inputs for each one. The modifier key changes a few characters - eg a Ha は can become Ba ば or Pa ぱ ..
[ a ][ ka ][ sa ]
[ ta ][ na ][ ha ]
[ ma ][ ya ][ ra ]
[mod ][ wa ][punc]
Then for a single letter you have:
u
i a e
o
So, If I want to input the word for tokyo I'd go:
down on ta - と (to)
up on a - う (u)
left on ka - き (ki)
down on ya - よ (yo)
modifier key - convert よ to combining ょ - thus making きょ (kyo)
up again on a - う (u)
By this point 東京 should appear in the selectable kanji above the keyboard - if not I can press a little chevron to expand the selections.
I think one area where people are always doing experiments like this is Android soft keyboards. I've seen so many wacky ways to input text, and some actually work pretty well.
Also today MSFT announced that keyboard research project with gestures, good day for alternative interfaces.