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Keybee: A Keyboard Designed for Smartphones

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Re: Keybee: A Keyboard Designed for Smartphones

#51

Post by Terretta »

WillAdams wrote: post #9
Terretta wrote: post #4

Compare 1996's "FITALY": "For the FITALY layout, we have obtained an average travel of 1.8, to be compared to an average travel of 3.2 for the QWERTY layout. (For prose, involving few numbers and symbols, the results are even better.)" https://www.textware.com/fitaly/fitaly.htm https://the-gadgeteer.com/1998/08/22/fitaly_review/ And closer to OP, "HexInput": "Please use this idea! If you are a software developer, I u…

There were a _lot_ of programs in this space, one of the more interesting was AlphaTap! by Network Improv: http://networkimprov.net/alphatap/light.html c.f., the research project: https://dasher.zone/docs/getting-started/how-to/ For my part, I just write text out using a Wacom stylus on my Note 10+

TY for the flashback: I'd learned Dasher! Jesus-phone had washed that away.

I kind of miss my Compaq iPaq, Danger Hiptop, Handspring Visor ... OK, one of those is not like the others, but it was ideal UX for the time.

Re: Keybee: A Keyboard Designed for Smartphones

#52

Post by jerf »

ruined wrote: post #37
jama211 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait this keyboard doesn’t support swipe typing? Hmmmm

sort of. swiping triggers every letter you cross

Oh dear. I'm afraid I'm not going to the take the requisite dozens of hours to be sure by learning this keyboard and making a truly "fair" comparison, but I'd bet I'm faster swiping with the current keyboard than I would be on this one. Swiping is why I can use words like "comparison" or "requisite" on a phone without giving it much thought anymore. I'm still faster on a real keyboard, especially as I rarely get those "tried to write 'hello', got 'grump'" sorts of errors with a keyboard, but it's a lot closer than it was when mobile devices first came out out and Palm's Graffiti input was considered a major breakthrough. (Laughable by modern standards.)

Re: Keybee: A Keyboard Designed for Smartphones

#53

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

aworks wrote: post #40
dmd wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Like 80% of the world is smartphone-only 2) In my (wealthy, Boston area) suburb most high school students do all their work - including writing multi-page papers - entirely on their phone. They think laptops are for old people.

I found 2) amazing. Then I realized I'm an old person...

It means future job security.

Re: Keybee: A Keyboard Designed for Smartphones

#54

Post by throw10920 »

dangus wrote: post #25

This is gonna be like Dvorak where eventually we all figure out that it’s not significantly faster and you had to re-learn how to type just to figure that out. I submit the idea that for most smartphone users, distance traveled and layout are not the limiting factor for typing speed.

> This is gonna be like Dvorak where eventually we all figure out that it’s not significantly faster and you had to re-learn how to type just to figure that out.

Generally nowadays people don't learn Dvorak because it's faster, they learn it because it reduces finger travel and effort.

Those factors apply here too.

Re: Keybee: A Keyboard Designed for Smartphones

#55

Post by bigstrat2003 »

dmd wrote: post #29
max8539 wrote: post #26

Well, it’s interesting, but who is heavily working with text, which requires a lot of typing, and only has a smartphone? Phones are mostly for consuming. For creating, it’s usually easier and more comfortable to use a device with a keyboard (PC or laptop)

1) Like 80% of the world is smartphone-only 2) In my (wealthy, Boston area) suburb most high school students do all their work - including writing multi-page papers - entirely on their phone. They think laptops are for old people.

> Like 80% of the world is smartphone-only

Ok, but you still can't get actual work done on a smartphone with any efficiency.

> In my (wealthy, Boston area) suburb most high school students do all their work - including writing multi-page papers - entirely on their phone. They think laptops are for old people.

Kids are stupid. We were stupid when we were their age too. They will learn eventually that to get serious work done, you need an actual computer.

Re: Keybee: A Keyboard Designed for Smartphones

#56

Post by bccdee »

Conscat wrote: post #47

I'm a user of ClearFlow, a layout with similar design goals (and it's available on GBoard by default). Interestingly, ClearFlow is an ortholinear layout, but I'm not sure if that's due to a limitation of GBoard or the intention of its author.

Just enabled—I've been idly wondering if there were any good alternative mobile keyboard layouts for ages, and this one checks all my boxes. Thanks!

Re: Keybee: A Keyboard Designed for Smartphones

#57

Post by hypersoar »

Terretta wrote: post #4

Compare 1996's "FITALY": "For the FITALY layout, we have obtained an average travel of 1.8, to be compared to an average travel of 3.2 for the QWERTY layout. (For prose, involving few numbers and symbols, the results are even better.)" https://www.textware.com/fitaly/fitaly.htm https://the-gadgeteer.com/1998/08/22/fitaly_review/ And closer to OP, "HexInput": "Please use this idea! If you are a software developer, I u…

This is what immediately popped into my mind. I remember using this back in the early 2000s.

Re: Keybee: A Keyboard Designed for Smartphones

#58

Post by [deleted] »

az09mugen wrote: post #33

I wanted to install it to give it a try, but in the playstore I saw the application roughly translated is "susceptible to share my approximative location with other enterprises or organization". I must ask, what could the reason(s) for a keyboard have access to a location ?

[deleted]

Re: Keybee: A Keyboard Designed for Smartphones

#59

Post by adzm »

alterom wrote: post #49
anishgupta wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

same thought, we've been using smartphones since 2 decades now, and not just we dont have a problem with qwerty, but anything new will be requiring more cycles to get accustomed to

I can touch-type with flow typing in GBoard at this point. That's to say, I'm writing this comment on my Android phone without looking at the keyboard. QWERTY is in my muscle memory in such a way that words have become writable as single stroke characters. I really, really doubt this Keybee thing can be an improvement over that in any way.

I really want to see the visualization of words as the swipe typing patterns. I tried doing it on paper and realized I couldn't understand it just by looking but once I started visualizing it and swiping in my head I could start to get a feel for it. The tricky part is figuring out where in the keyboard the stroke begins

Re: Keybee: A Keyboard Designed for Smartphones

#60

Post by ghgr »

Waterluvian wrote: post #39
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve always thought about copying other useful apps that are clearly trying to collect data or make you pay for stupid IAP, and then publishing and maintaining it through donations. The apps would all be free in the various offical stores.

The delta between thinking about it and doing it is why there’s so many solid one-and-done apps that don’t exist. I strongly encourage people to do it, especially if they’re not going to try to cash in.

There's https://simplemobiletools.com, who are doing their job to close that delta (not affiliated with them)
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