Sad News - Jean Ichbiah of FITALY Fame Passes Away

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Ichbiah">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Ichbiah</a><br /><br />It is very rare we have to report something of such a sad nature. The Wikipedia is showing that Jean David Ichbiah, a founder of Textware Solutions which makes FITALY, has passed away. He suffered complications from a brain tumor and a fall, and died on January 26, 2007.<br /><br />I don't know much about his family and who he left behind, but I hope you'll keep them in your thoughts and prayers. I corresponded with him many times over the past few years. I was privileged enough to beta test a number of the FITALY releases and he was always a gentleman and a dedicated programmer, taking pride in his work. It is a sad loss for the PDA community, especially those that fell in love with the quirky looking keyboard he created that allows those of us that took the time to learn it sustain a 40 word-per-minute tapping rate with a stylus. He will be missed.

[Darius Wey]

I also had the opportunity to chat with Jean many times over the past couple of years. His friendly attitude and dedication to his work and his peers was unparalleled.

Rest in peace, Jean. You will be missed.

[Vincent M Ferrari]

I once had a problem and he personally helped me solve it.

Damn that's just insane... :cry:

[Janak Parekh]

8O :cry:

You know, I think I spoke with him over the phone once. I can't remember why, either, but he seemed like a nice guy, and extremely competent.

RIP, Jean. :(

--janak

[ctmagnus]

I own two copies of Fitaly (Windows Mobile and Tablet PC) and I won both of them in contests. He was a generous person.

[tnelson2000]

My prayers are with him, his family and friends. It is a shame to lose such a talent. I never knew him but enjoyed his work both on my PPC and Tablet. From what is written he sounds like a great guy; I am sure he will be missed.

[Jason Dunn]

Very sad indeed - I did not know him personally, but I could tell that he took pride in his software and to me that says a lot about the man.

[j92627]

I have a neurological challenge called motor dysgraphia that causes writing with pen and paper to be slow, unnatural, difficult, and painful. My original purpose and my remaining primary purpose for my PPC was for writing notes to myself and for use as a notebook for work and life. I discovered Jean's FITALY soon after buying my Compaq iPAQ 3600 and have been relying on Jean's FITALY every day ever since and not just for keying entries into a PDA. Jean's FITALY allows me to write and work like a normal person, only much more efficiently.

Along the way my colleagues (who can write with a pen) have been intrigued by my use of PPC/FITALY and converted. On occassion Jean himself lent support for their technical issues, and over the telephone too. He was a creator, a support person, and a decent human being. For me, his work makes much of my life more possible.

[Timothy Rapson]

Bright, hardworking, generous, professional, loved.

Missed.

[bvkeen]

Thank you for posting, Ed. I did not know this until I saw your post.

He was a true genius.

[jlp]

I seem to recall a Jean Ichbiah who wrote articles in L'Ordinateur Individuel, a French computing magazine, already in the early 80's, most probably the same person.

I don't recall what he wrote about, but I remember his name.

I also own and use Fitaly 4 that I won here a few months ago and I only use that text entry mean.

Very clever, very fast and doesn't wear down the digitizer like Jot (aka Letter recognizer) as you just tap vs draw full letters; with occasional short drags for capitals and punctuations. As a very heavy PDA user who writes a lot, letter drawing on the screen has ruined all of my PDA digitizers, since my Newton MP 110 of 1994, in as short as a couple of months; but it usually takes well over a year to start showing random jiggles where the screen gets the most wear and tear. Needless to say that this greatly increases the bad recognition rate.

It seems to me that Fitaly debuted on the Newton, just like Palm's Graffiti did BTW.

Now I exclusively use Fitaly on my Loox 720 and that saves my digitizer.

For my PDA Fitaly is a Godsend.

RIP Jean and thanks for your great idea and work.

[renzokuken]

As a proud Fitaly user, i admire the brains behind it.
It's sad seeing great brains stop brainstorming..
Wish that the lost won't be too hard for all the dear ones you left behind.
Rest in peace, sir.

[edgar]

FITALY is my primary means of input on my Pocket PC. His contribution to the usability of Pocket PCs was a major improvement on the on-screen keyboard provided by MicroSoft, especially for those of us whose eyes and fingers labored to make contact with the correct keys on the original versions. As the coming generations of handheld devices bring new approaches to keyboard input, I would be willing to bet his concept will somehow influence the course of design. To his family, friends and business associates, my sincere condolences.

Edgar in Atlanta

[nd4speed]

This is very sad news. Fitaly is the first and as of yet, only SIP that I've found as a viable alternative to QWERTY input. His tech legacy will live on through all those fans that find Fitaly an indispensible tool. May he rest in peace.

[Hal Goldstein]

I too had the pleasure of conversations and E-mail with Jean. He spent a lot of time conveying to me his passion and research involved in developing FITALY. He also authored programming language ADA in his past efforts.

Yes it's quite sad and a loss to the Windows Mobile community.

[ujx]

I used FITALY on my Palm. I wouldn't buy a Pocket PC until FITALY was available. I use FITALY daily. In meetings I can take notes and publish direct to all attendees at the conclusion of the meeting. Jean was helpful and responsive when I needed help. I see that he's my age (within a few months). That's too young to leave us. I'm sad too. But I'm still using his s/w every day. Thank you Jean.

Jim in Littlerock CA

[Rob Alexander]

That's terribly sad news! FITALY is always the very first thing I install on a new PPC. It was really a stroke of genuis and I'm sorry we've lost such someone like him. RIP Jean.