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FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

swipe.futo.tech

61–70 of 261 posts

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#61
post #47
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they do, but it's on fdroid too - at that point the play store is simply a nice to have. if google does anything they don't like they can just say okay and keep publishing on fdroid, they have not lost whatever efforts they have invested into android. apple has absolutely no way to just publish an app and let people install it, which at least to my mind delegitimises them as a viable platform. I'm pretty sure if I ma…

> they do, but it's on fdroid too It's notoriously not on f-droid. The way FUTO licenses and/or builds its thing is made deliberately incompatible with f-droid's main repository. You can add the futo repository to the f-droid client, but when people talk about f-droid they really mean the main repository, not the extra hoops to add less trusted third parties.

sad, I didn't realise that because their website has an "install from f-droid" link. it does reinforce my point that android is a proper platform with a viable distribution mechanism though, if they can self host a third party repository.

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#62
post #5

I'm curious how it compares with Microsoft SwiftKey. Obviously, that's not an open-source app, but it would be an interesting benchmark.

I've been using SwiftKey for 10 years (typing not swiping), and test ran FUTO for the last month.

FUTO improved a lot (I had tried it a year earlier also) but SwiftKey's suggestions are still a lot better in my opinion. With SwiftKey I can just type roughly in the right spot without looking and the correct words will come out most of the time. FUTO still suggests a lot of nonsensical next words that just do not follow after the previous in English.

I hope it improves further so I can switch.

The voice models are great though, and they can be used as part of the keyboard or standalone.

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#63
post #36

I've been using this keyboard on and off for a while now. I've always switched back to gboard, however this update made me convert full time. It's really good. There are a few issues, like it randomly capitalizes words in the middle of sentences. Also, it doesn't seem to take context into account when suggesting words, so words that clearly wouldn't follow the last word will often show up. It's not as good as gboard…

We sound similar. I have found that the voice to text can often just randomly start spitting out emojis. Did you find that?

Which voice model are you using? I found that the english-74 is quite excellent. Used it to type this. Haven't seen the emoji issue with that model. Perhaps you're on english-39?

https://keyboard.futo.org/voice-input-models

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#64
post #50
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The clause you cited as well as the "Termination" section and the non-commercial restriction make it a non-free license. Besides the direct issues with that, it also means all software covered by this license is unsuitable for FOSS-only distributions like Debian or F-Droid. It's not entirely clear to me if the license is copyleft; derivative works have similar problems if so. As an aside, Eron Wolf, the billionaire b…

FUTO also funds some actually open source projects like Immich so not everything about them is bad.

They also employ Louis Rossman, interestingly.

https://consumerrights.wiki/w/FUTO

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#65
I always liked their voice dictation because it's better than Samsungs or Googles while it's on device. It's super fast and puts in punctuation in, etc.

The keyboard on the other hand I never really liked for some reason which I can't even explain clearly. So for the keyboard I've been using https://github.com/HeliBorg/HeliBoard for ever, but it does not have sviping.

I might try FUTO Swipe just to test it.

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#66
I've been using it for a while. The insistence of keyboards on having a large bar of autocorrect suggestions taking valuable vertical space annoys me to no end.

I really liked using Fleksy which let you swipe up and down on the keyboard to change autocorrect results, including adding words to your dictionary. I'm still not sure if FUTO even has that option.

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#67
post #43

I don't really get swiping. It's always going to be quicker and more efficient to type because you can use both hands, right? And you don't have to swipe your finger across the screen? Still going strong with Fleksy even though you can't even download it anymore.

It traces back to accessibility. Think of folks with shaky hands. The screen helps to stabilize the tremors. A similar thing applies to typing on a bumpy bus or while walking.

That said, it also depends on screen size. Back when Swype first became popular, Android screen sizes ranged from 3-5". That was another factor driving it's popularity back in the day.

Definitely not for everyone or in every situation though

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#68
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> shit It's just a commercial license with very mild terms.

Yeah, honestly. I love open source as much as the next guy, but I don't understand why people are so up in arms about this. The license feels pretty reasonable. The source code is fully available, none of the features are paywalled. They only prohibit you from taking their code and reselling it. If you take a look at the Play Store, there are thousands of instances where open source projects are lazily renamed and so…

The license doesn't prevent those leeches from succeeding. They will republish your app, whether it is fully proprietary or licensed under the GPLv3, and neither Google nor Apple will respond to takedown requests for apps. We get many reports of this behavior in an Android developer community I help moderate, it's pretty obvious there are a few known actors doing this with hundreds of apps, and the stores don't care.

So no, the license doesn't matter.

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#69
post #65

I always liked their voice dictation because it's better than Samsungs or Googles while it's on device. It's super fast and puts in punctuation in, etc. The keyboard on the other hand I never really liked for some reason which I can't even explain clearly. So for the keyboard I've been using https://github.com/HeliBorg/HeliBoard for ever, but it does not have sviping. I might try FUTO Swipe just to test it.

Heliboard does have swiping! You just have to manually download the GBoard swiping library and upload it in the app.

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#70
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you want it to randomly pick the next word, rather than suggest the most common word?

The most common word I entered after my forename is my surname. All other keyboards handled this fine, but FUTO didn't. That's what's odd

I think that, for it to learn a word, you need to actually press the middle suggestion, not just space. I'm not sure, though. Couldn't you add your surname as a custom word?
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