Mobile keyboards today are almost entirely based on the 26-key, 3-row QWERTY layout.
Here’s a new 2-row, 16-key alternative designed specifically for smartphones.
Smartphone keyboards dynamically adjust the "hitbox" of each key based on what's previously been typed and overall letter frequencies of the language. So when typing "Paris is the capital of Fr..." [*], the A key becomes much easier to hit than its neighbors. Fun fact: back in the day, when this tech was less refined, certain letter contexts made the hitboxes of some keys effectively nonexistent [0].
I wonder if an approach like KKeyboard with larger but statically combined keys leads to faster typing than the current approach with smaller but dynamically "combined" keys.
[*] In reality, the context is modeled using a simple Hidden Markov Model with a much smaller effective context window that could not associate "Paris" and "France." But you get the idea.
Not successfully though. Half the time I hit b or n in place of space. I can type numerous words before I notice. I've thought about just making a new iPhone keyboard app with just a big space bar.
The iPhone keyboard is the least successful tech I use each day.
I did a fun experiment once to confirm it’s not me sausage-fingering but the stupid iOS keyboard. There’s an app called xKeyboard which lets you design your own keyboard. I remade the FITALY[0] keyboard in it and even though the keys are slightly smaller than on the original iOS keyboard, I can type without making any error. Yet the iOS keyboard often detects the wrong key because of those stupid hitboxes. I wish there was a way to turn them off.
I always make the same typos in Gboard. I don't know if they adjust the hotboxes based on common letter sequences, but it would be nice if they adjusted it based on people's typing performance.
Interesting to note is how much typing accuracy decreases if you enable dual-language single-keyboard typing (e.g. Eng + Fr) on an iPhone, since targets end up having to account for two separate dictionaries.
Need Liquid Keys to make this behavior visible, which will lead to requests for turning it off, joining the iOS Accessibility Settings Hall of {F|Sh}ame.
Thanks for the thoughtful point!
Hitbox behavior is largely constrained by OS -level policies from the manufacturers, so major improvements on that side are difficult for now.
At this stage, I'm mainly trying to evaluate the layout and the input method itself - and hopefully, in the future, issues like hitbox tuning can be improved as well.
There is no builtin setting in iOS to disable it. However most 3rd party keyboards don't have it, as implementing it without OS support is a huge pain.
* Does this still expect you to hit every key but some of them need multiple taps?
* Are they doing fancy autocorrect-like magic to decide which letter you meant, and if so why use this instead of taking it one more step and using http://minuum.com/ ?
I just tried this out, and the need to double-tap was a total deal breaker making words like "success" a failure.
The other problem with the way this double tapping works is that I encountered missed spaces or other weirdness if I type too quickly. It's as if it's having trouble detecting new keydown events when another key is still down for a split second.
There is, understandably, a slight delay with double-tapping, so using simultaneous key presses can help improve speed when typing quickly. Thank you for your feedback.
yeah, I agree. It feels pretty rough to me. On older feature phones, you could accelerate this with a right arrow key which would lock to the key for key duplicates like 'cc' in success. Definitely feels like this needs a dedicated key for doing that
Yes, all characters are entered with tap or double-tap, and it also supports simultaneous taps as an advanced option.
It’s fully local, with no autocorrect or prediction.
Minuum compresses QWERTY into one row, but QWERTY mini keeps the QWERTY structure to preserve the familiar typing experience.
Thanks for your interest!
So like, to type "x" a person would hit the dx key twice?
I guess that's better for precise typing, but for normal prose it's probably faster+easier to just type blindly and let the machine figure out what you mean.
This could be a good alternative to Minuum when mixed together. The single line was great in theory, but in practice I often preferred the regular keyboard layout. Maybe the autopredict did not work all that well, at least with the multiple languages I mixed then? Going to two lines might improve it, and devices are bigger now than back then.
I mean for one thing Minuum is dead, the play store link is 404 and the last time I tried it it didn't work perfectly with recent Android versions. Which is sad because it was great when it was still maintained.
I believe Minuum is the only app I ever paid for on the Play Store, after having followed it since the Kickstarter campaign. It was the only option that made typing on a small touchscreen feel mostly frictionless for me, contrary to the varying degrees of frustration of other options. As a result, I now hardly type on my phone.
Looks nice. Reminds me of MessagEase[1] and clones, such as ThumbKey[2]. I use the latter for my mobile text input needs. However, that method is sometimes prone to typos, since one key may have up to 9 different characters assigned to it, and it is easy to swipe slightly wrong way. QWERTYmini could be better in that aspect, since there are only 2 characters per key.
Thanks for letting me know! The website isn’t optimized yet, so it’s running slower than usual. I’ll work on improving it soon. Really appreciate your interest!
Hmmm. Cute. I use a Bluehand (https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2023/08/08/1230), which is physical and has... half the keys, but that relies on chording. I might take a look at the idea of doing a 20-key physical keyboard that looks like this.
Just tried it out, how do you accelerate disambiguating a double key 'nn' in 'dinner' vs alternate? This doesn't feel very usable compared to the existing keyboard to me
I don't really understand how people manage to type with two thumbs while holding their phone securely. I use my left thumb and my right index finger, with my right thumb supporting the base of the phone.
I use my left pinky to hold the base of the phone. Lots of people with bigger phones use one of those stick on things on the back and hold it with their index and middle finger.
+1 for the pinky phone shelf. Worked better when phones were smaller and lighter now I have a popsocket on the back and hold it either between the middle and index or middle and ring depending on what I'm doing. Sometimes with middle and index the pinky comes out again to stabilize the phone too.
Good question. I’m not entirely sure about its value yet.
It was done to continue development without legal uncertainty, and it’s mainly a defensive measure.
Readit News
I wonder if an approach like KKeyboard with larger but statically combined keys leads to faster typing than the current approach with smaller but dynamically "combined" keys.
[*] In reality, the context is modeled using a simple Hidden Markov Model with a much smaller effective context window that could not associate "Paris" and "France." But you get the idea.
[0] https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/impossible-to-type-okee...
The iPhone keyboard is the least successful tech I use each day.
[0] https://www.fitaly.com/fitaly/fitaly.htm
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hksVvXONrIo
* Does this still expect you to hit every key but some of them need multiple taps?
* Are they doing fancy autocorrect-like magic to decide which letter you meant, and if so why use this instead of taking it one more step and using http://minuum.com/ ?
* Or is it something else?
The other problem with the way this double tapping works is that I encountered missed spaces or other weirdness if I type too quickly. It's as if it's having trouble detecting new keydown events when another key is still down for a split second.
I guess that's better for precise typing, but for normal prose it's probably faster+easier to just type blindly and let the machine figure out what you mean.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MessagEase
2. https://github.com/dessalines/thumb-key
Cool idea though.
https://archive.is/gW1rO
really appreciate the help!
Are you truly seeking a software patent for this? If so what is the plan for leveraging ownership over the patent?