Every year or so I try one or more privacy focused keyboards. I always end up right back on SwiftKey after a couple of weeks because most of the keyboards I try have the same problem: the predictions suck.
Ok, I get that surveillance is good for predictions. Put another way, predictions are tough without collecting everything everyone types. Is there a best-of-both-worlds keyboard out there? I’d be patient enough to give it some time to learn how I type and get better.
I assume you must’ve tried openboard. What issues did you have with it? The predictions have been more than satisfactory in my experience.
Doesn’t seem to have swipe typing, which is important for me. Otherwise it’s great.
There’s a fork that supports it, though it looks like it has become inactive, if you care about that https://github.com/erkserkserks/openboard
I have OpenBoard too and the predictions suck for me. What do you do that makes it not suck for you?
I use openboard and it does exactly what I want it to do: it displays characters I can type out myself. I don’t use swipe typing, predictions or autocorrect as those never work well enough, usually exclusively giving shit suggestions or corrections. I also use three languages daily, so I’d have to constantly switch the keyboard language, if I had autocorrect/predictions/swipe turned on.
I do understand that my use case is not the norm, but I still wanted to give my two cents.
Ah, okay, yeah if you don’t use it I don’t see it acting up on you. Lol.
What do you do that requires 3 languages? I’m genuinely curious.
Closest I got was Florisboard because of the customization options
The main things I’m looking for (in order) are
- predictions
- better support for emojis and gifs
- built in translations
Google Keyboard works really nicely and it’s hard to give up on some of that
Can you link me? Searching it in the Play Store turns up some weird results.
I end up back on SwiftKey because ios stock keyboard doesn’t have an option for a persistent number row. That’s literally all I want.
Open to suggestions. Would LOVE to not have to have a fucking bing button and be letting Microsoft creep my shit.
It annoys me that I can’t long press for punctuation on iPhone SwiftKey, like I could with Android. Also, no comma button.
You can long press the period beside the enter button for some punctuation, though the swipe through that pop up after the long press is a little janky.
You can also long press letter keys for variations on that letter.
I’m typing this on an iPhone and I just tested both those things to make sure I wasn’t lying to you lol. What feature is missing? Its been a few years since I used android regularly so I seem to have forgotten.
Android had a dedicated comma button… I think where the mic button is by the space bar. And on Android you could press and hold letters for punctuation, not just accented characters.
Dude I’m surprised that iOS even lets you pick a different keyboard than the default
Used to use Openboard but honestly swipe typing is actually good. So I went with Gboard with internet access turned off.
AOSP keyboard also supports swipe typing when the right library is in place, but I don’t think you can get it without flashing a new ROM or via root access.
OpenBoard supports swipe typing and uses a Google library to enable it, so it’s pretty much exactly the same as Gboard.
