mobile - How to improve the smartphone keyboard layout?

I have loads of problems with the small keys on my smartphone as my fingers cover them completely. I guess most people have the same problem.

The Qwerty keyboard layout was designed for ten-finger typing. On a smartphone, that is completely impossible.

It's probably a better idea to 'overload' keys and have less, but bigger, ones. Breaking away from the 'good old' Qwerty.

Are there studies related to typing on the smartphone with different keyboard layout configurations? Are there alternative keyboard layouts available to download and use?

Note: this is unrelated to language.

Edit: I've awarded the 100 bonus to the only working non-QWERTY proposal.

I've tested Swype, and it's very nice because it's very forgiving. You can Swype completely past some letters and still get the correct word. On the other hand, it's still QWERTY. There are two things I don't like.

1. The word-proposal mechanism sometimes gets it wrong*.
   
   
   
   • I tried to Swype 'Heineken', a word that wasn't in the dictionary. It was replaced by another word. I typed 'Heineken' letter for letter and it was replaced by the same word... The Swype default is picking the closest match of words inside the dictionary. You can get 'Heineken' by choosing it from the proposed list... Tedious and error prone.
   
   
   
   
   


2. The word-proposal bar shows/hides while typing, producing a, very irritating, moving-target effect.

I'm testing and using MessagEase at the moment. It has a learning curve. Some of the letters are... not where I'd expect them (probably QWERTY getting in the way). It's not nearly as forgiving as Swype (when you swipe a letter slightly wrong, you obtain the wrong letter). You have to type letter for letter, but with the dictionary installed, it's slightly faster. You have to delete letter for letter. I'll be using this keyboard during one month and report back if it's for keeps.

A combination of Swype and MessagEase would probably be a winner for me.

---

See xkcd for fun.

Answer

There is a keyboard on the Google Play store called the MessagEase Keyboard that has a completely different layout to a traditional keyboard. I've inserted a screenshot so you can have a look.

You type by just sliding a thumb across the letters you want and while it's completely different, actually only takes an hour or so to get used to and not much more before you can type really quickly. I'm not sure what studies were done on it but there must have been some as all of the most used groups of letters are near each other - I'm sure a bit of Googling will help you on your way.