Write It With GoogleThere may be a smartphone in every pair of hands, but not every pair of hands is comfortable with inputting text on their touch devices. There are quite a few methods available to make input easier, but not everyone ends up exploring these. Google has just added to the bunch with a handwriting
input app. Download Google Handwriting Input from the Play Store for free and follow the steps given to enable the new input method as the default. Now you’ll be able to just use your finger like a pen when you input SMS, notes, search or anything else. The new Google handwriting method is good with messy handwriting too, but the space is after all limited and the whole business of spaces and corrections can get a bit annoying. Also, the transition can be rather disconcerting.
All The Numbers You WantYou'll be wanting to keep an eye on a host of numbers related to your business and Numerics, an app for the iPhone, iPad, and the Apple Watch, is a great way to do it. Numerics connects to a growing number of cloud offerings that you use — securely, the developers say — to tap into your metrics. When you install the app, you’re given a choice of widgets with which to create a dashboard. Say you have a Facebook page or a website. You can select the metrics you want included such as how many visitors are online, what engagement is happening on your website, how many comments you’re getting, etc. You can pull in this data from Twitter, Foursquare, YouTube, and many other services. You can track figures for an app you have as well. You can also pull in your business and project figures. This app was free at the time of review.
With A Touch Of The Fingerthe google play Store is full of Android launchers, many of them most interesting in the way they let you customise your phone and add features that the device didn’t particularly ship with. Finger Gesture Launcher, which could have done with a more elegant name, is an enjoyable app meant for those who do a lot on their phones and don’t want to be bothered with looking for stuff by navigating the phone up and down. Within the app, you tap a plus sign to add a gesture such as a C for camera and associate it with the action — such as opening the camera app. That done, you get a little transparent circle on the home screen and whenever you need to initiate an action via a gesture, tap the circle and get a screen to draw a quick shape. This is most helpful when you’re switching from one app to the other.
(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 01-06-2015)
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Mala Bhargava has been writing on technology well before the advent of internet in Indians and before CDs made their way into computers. Mala writes on technology, social media, startups and fitness. A trained psychologist, she claims that her understanding of psychology helps her understand the human side of technology.
