Snapkeys makes it easier to type on smartphone, tablet screens

What: Snapkeys is a “new paradigm” soft keyboard designed to overcome the problems inherent in virtual keyboards found on touch cellphones and tablets. As anyone who has ever tried to type anything of substance with those keyboards know, it’s nearly impossible to get anything done sing your device’s keys. The SnapKeys keyboard is the world’s only solution that frees the tablet PC and smartphone of the space-hogging, on-screen keyboard while freeing the end-user of an awkward, unworkable typing experience.

The Snapkeys system, called 2i, has four buttons (on the corners of the screen), with the letters of the common QWERTY keyboard jumbled up in a seemingly random manner clustered around the buttons. It’s not random, though; the keys are placed in a manner that makes it easy to remember their position, which you get used to after a couple of hours of use (but that’s it; once you know it, you know it). You use your thumbs to navigate, so instead of picking at each letter one at a time, you can “speed type,” increasing your typing productivity by tens, or hundreds, of percent.

Why: In the age of the touch-screen device, the keyboard seems a bit old school. Why bang on keys in order to input data, when you can just tap directly on the screen of your device?

Because. Because a keyboard is more comfortable – we’re used to the tap-tap-tap of the keys. Because the “keys” on the device are impossibly small, and it takes fifteen times longer to input data using a touch screen than with a keyboard. Because the keyboard offers the satisfaction of a tap, as opposed to the soullessness of the touch screen. Because it’s just easier to type on a keyboard!

But as modern as retro has become, we’re not going back to the keyboard. On the other hand, the current touchscreen typing system just isn’t working out. But what if we update the keyboard for use on cellphones and tablets – somehow making the virtual keyboard experience easier and smoother? That’s exactly what Snapkeys does: With just 4 invisible keys, SnapKeys provides a far more comfortable and intuitive typing experience enabling significantly faster typing speeds than the traditional keyboard while bringing, for the first time, the possibility of typing long-content document like blogs, work-related reports and school assignments, on touch-screen devices.

Israel connection: Based in Jerusalem (with sales offices in New York), Snapkeys, headed by CEO Benjamin Ghassabian, was financed with $4 million of private money.

PS: The Snapkeys folks know that the system takes a little getting used to, so they have an incentive; a contest you can enter to win big prizes – if you’re adept at using your thumbs to type (for a generation raised on games like Angry Birds, it should be a cinch!). The winner will be invited to an international event, all expenses paid, to perform live. The current record for the contest (which consists of typing a sentence of about 30 words) is about 25 seconds.

And all the top typists and anyone else who wants to help – are being invited to participate in a special effort Snapkeys is sponsoring for this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Snapkeys is promoting their keyless keyboard technology through a contest that seeks thousands of people – the highest number ever – to break the Guinness World Record for fastest typing speed. (iPhone users can download the app from the App Store, and the contest details are on the Snapkeys Facebook page.