Writing on Glass

No, it\’s not walking on broken glass. Nor typing on broken glass, although I wouldn\’t count that possibility out entirely if my three year old has anything to say about it!
I\’m writing this post on an iPad, using the virtual keyboard. No external keyboard, not bluetooth. Thus, writing on glass.
I was always a little iffy about the idea of writing on a virtual keyboard. I type pretty rapidly. On a good hour, I\’m putting out fifteen hundred words. Losing writing speed in any serious way would be bad for me. But I had two experiences which made me want to give it a try.
First, I bought a laptop with one of those chicklet type keyboards about a year and a half ago. I\’d typed on regular key type keyboards my entire life, you understand, starting with a manual typewriter over thirty years ago. It was a big adjustment. But I very quickly got my writing speed back up to full speed.
The second was talking to a college professor I know about tech. He commented that the new thing on campus was students using an iPad. Not alongside a laptop or desktop, but often instead of another computer. Simply typing out papers and assignments on the glass screen and turning them in.
OK. In my experience, college students are something of a litmus paper (perhaps canary in a coal mine is a better metaphor) for where tech is going. If the college students have moved to typing on glass keyboards, then not only can it be done, it\’s likely things are moving in that direction for everyone. On the theory that this might be an upcoming vital life skill, I decided to give it a try.
A week in, and I\’m basically up to full speed typing. There is no appreciable loss of speed. Oh, my fingers still stumble on the keys sometimes. But they always did that anyway. I\’m back to touch typing, watching the screen more than my keys and fingers. Getting better as I go.
Remarkable.
I\’m not sure I\’d have thought that was possible. But here I am. And it\’s VERY freeing. With Storyist, I have a decent option for typing that I can export to my laptop. Daedalus Touch is a good program as well, but without support for RTF export there\’s no way to retain formatting. Storyist retains bolds, italics, and other bits. I\’ll be watching both as I go forward, as well as keeping eyes on the upcoming Scrivener for iPad.
So I can take this little pound and a half device with me anywhere, type away on it anywhere for eight or more hours, and upload it to my laptop via Dropbox when I hit an Internet connection. I\’ve got a 3G iPad, but don\’t have the service turned on right now. So far, I\’m really liking it.
What have your experiences been with writing on tablets? Ever tried it? Thought about trying it? I\’d love to hear your opinions on tablets for writing in general, and \”writing on glass\” in particular. I look forward to seeing what other folks are doing with these devices!