Text Messaging Without Typos

I can't decide whether these guys are smoking something or they have a really powerful idea. Given the invitation, I went down to meet Jeremy Goren, a super-smart founding member of Prevalent Devices. He demonstrated Phraze-It, the most bizarre way I've seen to type longer documents and mistake-proof SMS messages on a phone or PDA. Jeremy said it was the company's reaction to the "why can't anyone write an SMS message that's even remotely a correct sentence?" The downloadable program can be used for everything you do on a mobile device—emailing, text messaging, word processing, browsing, or any other application that would benefit from keyboard input.

Phraze-It presents you with the most whacked out keyboard layout I can think of and displays it as a virtual screen on your phone or PDA. It's reorganized the keyboard by vowels. Each of the vowels A, E, I, O, and U has its respective consonants following it on the screen. So A, for example, is followed by B, C, D. Typing the vowel is easy. You use your finger to touch the "A." Typing the "B," "C," or "D" is a bit more complex because you type "A" to bring up the consonants associated with it and then press "B."

The advantage is that you can type with your finger (the thumb is more likely to suffer from repetitive stress injury) and you can type more quickly and accurately once you train yourself in this way of thinking in terms of the vowel's organization of the alphabet.

I found my brain trying to spell the word at the same time it was trying to remember how the alphabet was organized. The learning curve disappeared a bit, but you have to wonder about a system where you need to know that "I" is associated with "J," "K," and "L." Symbols, upper and lowercase, and numbers are all managed by changing the virtual keyboard. Once you become fluent in your new ABC world, the program offers a number of options to reduce keystrokes.

At the moment, the software is offered via download from the site and is compatible with devices that run Windows Mobile 5. The newer Windows Mobile 6 version is being tested.

If sending emails or messages on your phone or PDA that make you look like a chimp was taking dictation, then you owe it to yourself to check out Phraze-It. A free tour and free trial are offered at the company's site. A fun game that lets you become adept as you play is another plus. You'll quickly find out whether it's your thing or not and then you can pay the $17.76 (as in freedom from typos) if you like it.