The typical handwriting recognition solution for UIQ, and after all there are only two currently implemented — CIC’s JotPro on the Sony Ericsson P800/P900 (and presumably the P910) and one on the Motorola A920 and A925, source unknown —have significant drawbacks when compared to good old low tech writing. They are single letter text entry systems that rely on special manipulations (on the Sony Ericsson P series different portions of the screen are used while on the Motorola A series it is a button) to determine whether they are recognizing upper case, number, lower case or symbols. A far cry from just writing.

“If you look at the solutions available on UIQ devices the hand writing recognition is very rudimentary,” says Charlotta. “You write in one place and see the recognition in another and you need to know how to use the system, you can not simply write.”

“The main difference with our technology is that you write in a similar way to using a piece of paper, you see the complete word as it is entered and edit the word in the recognition area. You don’t write on a blank screen, splitting your vision between where you write and where the recognized text goes,” says Charlotta. “Rather than inventing a new way of working our goal is to go back to the way people are used to working and provide a user interface that seems like paper.”

OnSpot on the Palm Platform

Creating such an application is not straightforward, the intricacies of handwriting recognition should not be underestimated. The engine driving OnSpot is one of the most advanced in the industry capable of coping with mixed capital letters, lower case, number and signs in the same text stream. Although this type of mixed character recognition is complex it is essential to creating a natural writing experience.

Unlike some companies who also have a long tradition in Palm and Windows Mobile development Decuma found its staff were enthusiastic about creating a Symbian OS port of OnSpot. “It is part of our corporate culture to be curious and explore new things,” says Charlotta. “And so the decision to port to Symbian OS was welcomed by our team. They saw it as an intriguing challenge and a positive move for the company. And since we made the move the feedback from the team has been positive, they are happy working with Symbian OS, not to say that Palm or Windows are difficult to work with. Overall it’s been a positive experience.”

Decuma got up to speed on Symbian OS using a combination of internal and external training for its existing staff. In fact the option to buy ready-made Symbian OS expertise was not considered as part of the strategy.

While the learning process involved assessing information from developer support sites such as Sony Ericsson Developer World Decuma has not yet seen a need to formally join any of these programs. “So far we have been doing well technically,” says Charlotta. “But there are other reasons for joining these programs, a lot of soft or intangible benefits such as cross industry contact and exposure; as well as the sharing of technical information. Because of these benefits we may look at joining some of these programs in the future.”

Decuma is currently talking with several UIQ licensees and expects that OnSpot will be seen as the text recognition interface on a number of UIQ devices in 2005.

While supplying directly to OEMs has many advantages, and is the primary focus of Decuma’s marketing effort, Decuma has not overlooked the retail software market. A downloadable version of OnSpot will be available in the next few months for existing UIQ device owners. “Working in the retail area has several important benefits,” says Charlotta. “There is product visibility, which helps with opening the door at OEMs. Of course there is also the revenue, but for us one of the most valuable benefits is feedback. When you supply to an OEM any feedback you get is filtered, selling a consumer version of the application gives us direct feedback on the product which we can use in our research and development to improve OnSpot.”

Decuma’s solution looks as though it does provide a more natural handwriting recognition style than existing UIQ solutions. However while it may work on the relatively wide screen of a PDA the more limited space on a compact UIQ screen could obviate some of the advantages, now an implementation on Series 90 would be a different matter. We await the release of OnSpot with interest.

Decuma have several demos of OnSpot on non-Symbian OS platforms on its web site (www.decuma.com).