macnn
02/28/2008, 11:10am, EST
Thursday, February 28th
iPhone mod adds haptic feedback when typing
In an effort to make typing on the iPhone more familiar, the University of Glasgow has unveiled a hack that provides vibration feedback when a virtual key is pressed, simulating the effect of typing on a real keyboard. The patch enables what the University calls haptic feedback, which researchers say can help improve typing speeds, while simultaneously reducing errors. The hack is available from the University's Google Code page, requiring a jailbroken 1.1.3 iPhone.
The current modification uses a 70-millisecond, 170Hz pulse with the built-in vibration motor to simulate pressing the key, while a 50-millisecond, 100Hz pulse imitates the key raising when the finger leaves the touch surface. The researchers also have implemented an unspecified event that occurs when a user's finger crosses over two keys, to help with accuracy.
Filed under: iPhone, software, developer
Other story tags: Google, typing, vibration
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In any event, this sounds useful, but how do you wean yourself off using the vibrations? After I got accuracy down, I know I'd want to conserve battery life by eliminating vibrations, but there'd be that sense of wrongness without the same feel to typing.
I'm not optimistic that it's negligible (not that anyone is saying that this is the case), but hard to say how bad it is without facts.
It _is_ haptic feedback. HCI programs all over the world use the term for anything that gives physical feedback from a computer.