“Apple’s new iOS 5 will bring a dramatic improvement to the typing experience with something they call “Grab Handles” which is a split keyboard. This will be benefit those who need to type with their thumbs while holding their iPad or iPad 2 with two hands.
Previously, one would have to have pretty large hands with very long thumbs to reach the middle of the keyboard. In fact it was practically impossible to do. With this new update there is a handle button on the keyboard that you grab with your thumb and it will split the keyboard making the keys reachable from the average person while they hold the iPad or iPad 2 with both hands.
This will make the iPad easier to use while standing or sitting somewhere other than at a table or desk. It is also something that should have been available far earlier in iOS. There are already similar keyboards available for other operating systems. Until we saw Microsoft’s early previews of Windows 8, we had not seen one built into a mobile OS for quite some time.” – Taken from Gottabemobile.com
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Yes, dramatic improvement.
Oh and did you notice the last sentence? Yes, Windows 8 has it too!
The split keyboard feature is shown at 2:50
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Q: Wait what the fuck is this Radial you’re talking about?
A: Available on the App Store since January 15th 2011. Check it out here.
Oh and by the way, this was the description written by us, well, 5 months ago.
“Radial is an innovative custom keyboard app for the iPad. Built specifically for use with only your two thumbs, Radial allows you to type on your iPad in a whole new way.
If you’re the kind of user who holds his/her iPad upright with both palms in the horizontal orientation, you’ll definitely recognize how difficult it is to reach the center alphabets on the standard keyboard. Radial was created to help you with that.”
Sounds familiar? *hint: scroll to the first two paragraphs of this post*
Q: Ok… so if Radial was so awesome why didn’t anyone use it?
A: The trouble is, Apple’s app developers simply cannot affect anything outside of their own app, meaning that Radial just could NOT work outside of itself, when you launch other apps, your keyboard will still be Apple’s fat unusable keyboard, not Radial.
We tried to streamline it as much as possible, offering in-built tools for more commonly used apps, such as an in-built “mail”, and in-built “notes”, even an in-built web search and in-built status update poster (that could post to both your twitter and Facebook accounts). When you switch to another app, Radial also automatically copies whatever you wrote onto your clipboard, so you can paste your text with one-tap.
But obviously, it was still way too much trouble for that little bit of comfort while typing even though it made so much sense. Unfortunately, to READ your mail, you still have to go to the original Mail app. Same goes for your twitter feeds and Facebook updates, it was way too much trouble for us to write an in-built twitter, Facebook, AND mail app all in one.
So, why doesn’t anyone use Radial? Because we are indie developers, and not working for Apple.
Q: Yea big deal, how do you know they copied you? It does look kinda different!
A: Never said they did, maybe they already had this in the works for awhile now. I just said that it now renders my barely 5 month old app completely obsolete, and unfortunately because I am neither working for Apple nor Microsoft, my foresight and spark of genius was unable to get me anywhere and I will continue to remain anonymous and unrecognised. I guess that’s life.
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I have a feeling that the exact same thing will happen for the project I’m working on right now. I’m 100% positively sure that it’s going to be something that EVERYONE will use, but whether or not that something that everyone is using is made by me, or something similar made by a big ass company right after I made it, is the big question. If the former is true, you’re probably going to see me a lot in the news, but because this is reality, it’s probably going to be the latter, and a year from now, you will see me post something like this again 
Ah… Life
build it for android! android is open platform, I’m sure this will work on it
Did you copyright Radial? You may have a case.
Hi, unfortunately, patenting such a product required too much funds and time for me and my partner.