Get that old Palm feeling on Android with Graffiti

If you loved the speed and efficiency of using Graffiti on your Palm® device, now you can renew that love on your Android device.

If you’re new to Graffiti this is your chance to experience first-hand what has long been the world’s most popular handwriting recognition software.

Old-school fans know that Graffiti is a solid handwriting and short-tying recognition system that powered many of Palm’s original handsets. The folks over at Access want to bring this to a whole new generation of Android users but it may have a few challenges to get to the mainstream.

The download link was not yet working as of press time for my Motorola Droid X, so I didn’t get a chance to put it through the paces. But I wonder how useful this type of system would be with modern devices.

Graffiti was built at a time when you needed a stylus to operate any touch device. That stylus made it a lot easier to use a handwriting recognition system and I don’t know how easy that will be with your bare finger on a capacitive touch screen. Most of the modern Android smartphones (and other platforms) are ditching the stylus in favor of finger input, so the future uses don’t look very promising (at least for English).

Additionally, the virtual keyboard on the Droid X is incredible. I’m highly impressed with it and can quickly bang out messages on the go. I haven’t even had to switch on the preloaded Swype or even been tempted to.

I’ve been wrong before though, so I’ll give Graffiti for Android a try. Do the same, please, and let us know what you think in the comments.

– Download Graffiti for Android (free)