Guinness World Record for iPad typing broken
How fast can you type the alphabet on an iPad? The previous record of 6.31 seconds has been busted by the teenage son of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili who did it in 5.26 seconds.
Just months ahead of when Apple is set to make tweaks to the software keyboard that ships with its iPad, the Guinness World Record for typing on it has been broken.
Fox News reports that the 15-year-old son of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is the proud new owner of a Guinness World Record for typing the entire English alphabet (A-Z) on the iPad's software keyboard. His time? 5.26 seconds, which beats out former record-holder Charlie Joseph McDonnell's 6.31 seconds
Fox says Saakashvili "spent months getting ready" for those few seconds.
Compared with typing the alphabet on a normal computer keyboard, Saakashvili's record doesn't quite hold up. Current record holder Sudhakar Raju did that in 3.52 seconds in a record-breaking attempt back in February of this year.
Surprisingly, there's no way to compare the new record to the same attempt on an iPhone, where the keys are closer to one another. The nearest equivalent is how long it take to peck in the Guinness World Record example phrase: "The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human," which was done in 25.94 seconds on a Samsung Galaxy S smartphone running Google's Android OS and Swype's software keyboard. That record has not yet been re-attempted on an iPhone, though unofficially, Gumball Tech writer Brian Sweet wrote did it in just under 22 seconds (video here).
Worth pointing out is that Apple is set to rework the iPad's keyboard with iOS 5 when the system software is released later this year. The company is adding a feature that will let users split the keyboard in half when held in landscape mode, giving users an easier way to access keys with just their thumbs and while still holding the device:
Such an update is unlikely to invalidate the record (since it's an optional feature), though could provide gains to future record breakers.
Update at 7:58 p.m. PT: The aforementioned Brian Sweet tried to see if he could (unofficially) beat the new record and did the alphabet in about 3.2 seconds, beating out the 5.26 second iPad record, and even the 3.52 seconds Raju recorded on a standard keyboard. Sweet said it took him "about 25 minutes" to get it down, and "that it's much easier when standing up."
(via Cult of Mac)