Stewart
Cammunist
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2011
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- 986
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- Australia
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- Political Leaning
- Centrist
So a heads up for anyone who has a semi decent Smartphone. Check out some of the replacement keyboards for Android. Seriously they make typing so much easier. They are awesome. So what makes them so awesome? Swiping and prediction texting. Whilst most stock keyboards have predictions they are very aggressive and not always accurate, especially with acronyms. Most downloadable keyboards introduce custom dictionary and selectable predictions usually displayed above the keyboard. Swiping enables your fingers to glide seamlessly across the keyboard, believe me it works.
My recommended keyboards are: (and they are all free)
Swype*: Swype is one of the first keyboard to introduce swiping to Android and still one of the best. It offers speedy and accurate swipe recognition. However it lacks customization, may not work on all devices and have some issues. It is in perpetual beta as it's business model is to sell it's design to smartphone producers rather than the consumers. The inability to adjust the long press (how long it takes to trigger the alternate keys) and lack of customization will annoy some users.
SwiftKey Flow*: SwiftKey is probably the most famous of alternate keyboards. It was mainly developed as a predictive texting keyboard and swipe was added only recently in beta and it shows. Swiftkey is great for the fast tapper. It has dynamic learning which means it suggest words based on your previous selections. However, the fact that predictions and 'flowing' (swiping) aren't available in many apps, most annoyingly the Google Chrome's omnibox is very infuriating. This keyboard is great for occasional swiper. Also it focus on predicting the next word, rather than correcting the past word it may have incorrectly recognized. This will become a paid app when it comes out of beta, as SwiftKey 3 currently is. I imagine this isn't far away.
Kii Keyboard My favourite keyboard it adds a good balance between the prediction and customization of SwiftKey and Swype's great swiping experience. It is only still in early beta so the next word prediction isn't as accurate as SwiftKey but it's still better than Swype. If you're swiping, why are you even using next word prediction :2razz: Also the stock keyboard is a bit ugly and requires some quick customization. Adjusting the key spacing and size is all that is necessary. It's raft of customization really makes for a great keyboard. It's still in beta and probably will remain in beta for a while.
If you have a 4.2 phone, I still recomending installing a custom keyboard, they are just that much better. I like Kii because I'm a swipe texter. For tap texting get SwiftKey.
*Requires sideloading.
My recommended keyboards are: (and they are all free)
Swype*: Swype is one of the first keyboard to introduce swiping to Android and still one of the best. It offers speedy and accurate swipe recognition. However it lacks customization, may not work on all devices and have some issues. It is in perpetual beta as it's business model is to sell it's design to smartphone producers rather than the consumers. The inability to adjust the long press (how long it takes to trigger the alternate keys) and lack of customization will annoy some users.
SwiftKey Flow*: SwiftKey is probably the most famous of alternate keyboards. It was mainly developed as a predictive texting keyboard and swipe was added only recently in beta and it shows. Swiftkey is great for the fast tapper. It has dynamic learning which means it suggest words based on your previous selections. However, the fact that predictions and 'flowing' (swiping) aren't available in many apps, most annoyingly the Google Chrome's omnibox is very infuriating. This keyboard is great for occasional swiper. Also it focus on predicting the next word, rather than correcting the past word it may have incorrectly recognized. This will become a paid app when it comes out of beta, as SwiftKey 3 currently is. I imagine this isn't far away.
Kii Keyboard My favourite keyboard it adds a good balance between the prediction and customization of SwiftKey and Swype's great swiping experience. It is only still in early beta so the next word prediction isn't as accurate as SwiftKey but it's still better than Swype. If you're swiping, why are you even using next word prediction :2razz: Also the stock keyboard is a bit ugly and requires some quick customization. Adjusting the key spacing and size is all that is necessary. It's raft of customization really makes for a great keyboard. It's still in beta and probably will remain in beta for a while.
If you have a 4.2 phone, I still recomending installing a custom keyboard, they are just that much better. I like Kii because I'm a swipe texter. For tap texting get SwiftKey.
*Requires sideloading.