Participants were asked to type the 40 words on the left with the method of their choice and record their time in seconds, the acceptable methods being:

	The Fitaly Keyboard for the Palm
	The Qwerty On-screen Keyboard
	Graffiti Strokes

The use of Graffiti shortcuts was not allowed and neither was the use of an attached hardware keyboard since the object was to compare pen input methods.

The contest ended on July 25, 1998.

Marcus Macrae, of London, wins the contest and the prestigious bottle of Dom Perignon: Marcus completed the test in 37 seconds - close to 65 wpm. The next 25 fastest entries win a free license of the Fitaly Keyboard for the Palm. All participants made the demonstration that fast text entry is possible on a Palm Organizer.

Final Results:

Rank	Method	Time	WPM	Participant	Date
1	Fitaly	37 s	64.9 wpm	Marcus Macrae	July 25, 1998
2	Fitaly	38 s	63.2 wpm	Henry Schaumburger	July 24, 1998
3	Fitaly	39 s	61.5 wpm	kaiwei	July 15, 1998
4	Fitaly	42 s	57.1 wpm	Mona Cappucino	July 16, 1998
5	Fitaly	44 s	54.5 wpm	Nickolas Wanke	June 18, 1998
6	Fitaly	44 s	54.5 wpm	Roger Prokic	June 19, 1998
7	Fitaly	46 s	52.2 wpm	Henri Dorn	June 17, 1998
8	Fitaly	47 s	51.1 wpm	Noah Bergevin	July 14, 1998
9	Qwerty	49 s	49.0 wpm	Andrew Wong	July 8, 1998
10	Fitaly	54 s	44.4 wpm	Robert Hill	July 5, 1998
11	Fitaly	56 s	42.8 wpm	Mike Harvan	July 16, 1998
12	Fitaly	56 s	42.8 wpm	Christopher Yo	July 20, 1998
13	Fitaly	59 s	40.7 wpm	Arthur Vanderbilt	June 18, 1998
14	Fitaly	60 s	40.0 wpm	David Wang	July 8, 1998
15	Fitaly	61 s	39.3 wpm	Rob Fisher	July 23, 1998
16	Fitaly	65 s	36.9 wpm	Jo Suzuki	July 13, 1998
17	Graffiti	69 s	34.8 wpm	Valerie Polichar	July 25, 1998
18	Graffiti	70 s	34.3 wpm	Mark Putter	July 8, 1998
19	Fitaly	74 s	32.4 wpm	Yeechang Lee	July 17, 1998
20	Fitaly	76 s	31.6 wpm	John Woodard	July 25, 1998
21	Qwerty	78 s	30.8 wpm	Cathy Cobbs	July 24, 1998
22	Fitaly	78 s	30.8 wpm	Carl Jacobsen	July 25, 1998
23	Graffiti	84 s	28.6 wpm	Manoj Kasichainula	July 25, 1998
24	Qwerty	100 s	24.0 wpm	Richard Smiley	July 24, 1998
25	Graffiti	102 s	23.5 wpm	Tim Charron	June 19, 1998
26	Graffiti	107 s	22.5 wpm	Dave Eckhardt	June 18, 1998

We received a total of 34 entries:

• 19 using Fitaly,
• 9 using Graffiti,
• 6 using Qwerty.

Below are the times for each of the three methods:

Method	Fastest Time	Average Time	Slowest Time
Fitaly	37 s	54 s	78 s
Graffiti	60 s	85 s	107 s
Qwerty	49 s	85 s	103 s

The same results expressed in words per minute are shown below:

Method	Fastest wpm	Average wpm	Slowest wpm
Fitaly	64.9 wpm	44.4 wpm	30.8 wpm
Graffiti	40.0 wpm	28.2 wpm	22.5 wpm
Qwerty	49.0 wpm	28.2 wpm	23.3 wpm

The detailed statistics are shown on a separate page.

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The importance of being over 40 wpm

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To conclude this overall presentation of results, we would like to emphasize the significance of achieving over 40 wpm on a Palm Pilot: This is the speed achieved by many average typists on the full 10-finger keyboard of a PC. So these results demonstrate that entering memos on a Palm organizer is now a realistic proposal with the Fitaly.

Even for those who type very fast on a PC - say 80 wpm -, the factor of two is more than offset by the convenience of a machine that is always there with you, in your pocket, in every meeting, when you need to record a new idea, and always ready to start immediately. Carrying a laptop is not a convenient alternative, not to mention the time it takes to start a Windows application. And writing notes on paper is not a good alternative either with the time lost transcribing and the difficulty of filing.

So even for fast PC typists, the speed achievable with the Fitaly combined with the convenience of the ubiquitous Palm Pilot offers a realistic solution for text entry. The dominant direction for HotSync will definitely become from the Palm to the PC.