iPhone Keyboard Leads to Typso

jfruhlinger writes "One of the selling points of the iPhone was its revolutionary touch-screen full keyboard. But a study has shown that text messages sent from iPhones contain significantly more typso than messages from phones with other kinds of keyboards — and aren't entered any faster."

Comments

Re:Really?

[Fluffy Bunnies]

Surprisingly, the study found that iPhone texters don't improve with experience. The researchers also asked users in the other groups to send text messages using the iPhone. These novice iPhone users made mistakes at the same rate as people who have owned iPhones for at least one month, the study found.

Emphasis mine.

Re:I hate the l337 txt culture

[Rik Sweeney]

Another reason why people use l337 when typing messages is because they can fit more words in to their text. Some contracts only allow you send a certain number of messages, 1 message is about 180 characters.

See you later (13 letters)
CU L8R (5 letters)

Re:But does it include that the spell checker fixe

[toleraen]

From the study

If the iPhone corrective text feature made an improper correction, this was still counted as a single error even if multiple letters were changed. Sounds like they were using it.

Re:I hate the l337 txt culture

[caffeinemessiah]

hu kars so lng as u cn reed it? Seriously, I've been seeing typing like this appear in blogs recently.

Time for an Internet meme (source unconfirmed):

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a tatol mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe.

Re:I hate the l337 txt culture

[Tony Hoyle]

The iphone frequently makes things *worse* by changing your word to a word it thinks you meant.

This made worse by the fact that the UK iphone speaks US English and can't spell perfectly ordinary words like 'colour'.

I have hell with my initials.. the iphone thinks I mean something completely different and keeps changing them, and I have to back up and put it back. Passwords are even worse - there you can't *see* it's changed it and it's only about the 30th attempt at entering it you realize what's going on.

Re:I hate the l337 txt culture

[Black Cardinal]

I remember reading once that a lot of the changes introduced by American English are from Noah Webster when he created his dictionary. He felt that the United States needed its own language identity so he "Americanized" several spellings.

Re:I hate the l337 txt culture

[mykdavies]

This finding was originally reported by Graham Rawlinson while doing his PhD at Nottingham University in 1976!

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg16221887.600

See also this cached page which also has an interesting discussion of the effect in other languages; it works in French and Spanish, but not in Finnish or Hebrew. Interestingly, I could recognise the language of most of the scrambled samples, and even read much of the French and Spanish without difficulty, and I'm by no means fluent in either.

Re:I hate the l337 txt culture

[Relic of the Future]

I snlreiecy digarese wtih the perisems put frtoh aobut scbrialnmg wrods, so I'm itionltlnaney enrovdaenig to ulizite leetnghir cpocmtaeild wodrs, not nclesiesray uonommcn wrdos, taht can not be dceerihped as ieuntlivity as tohse in the oirginal prgpraaah. The frist of my dsiceorives is taht wrods endnig in sufefxis or bnegining in pierxfes bmecoe daggesiend form the frist/lsat ltteer rothlpisneias taht spupedsloy are the baiss of the pmseires, and bemcoe mcuh mroe clinaelnhgg, amsolt ieclenaipbhrde.

Found at http://www.metafilter.com/28301/Scrambled-Text after searching for "first last letter" rebuttal

Re:I hate the l337 txt culture

[Fred Ferrigno]

"Anidroccg to crad cniyrrag lcitsiugnis planoissefors at an uemannd, utisreviny in Bsitirh Cibmuloa, and crartnoy to the duoibus cmials of the ueticnd rcraeseh, a slpmie, macinahcel ioisrevnn of ianretnl cretcarahs araepps sneiciffut to csufnoe the eadyrevy oekoolnr."

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/25/2350239&tid=167

Re:I hate the l337 txt culture

[dotancohen]

Mark Twain had a plan for standardizing American spelling:

In Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.