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I could type 55 wpm on the keyboard. Every time I use a screen keyboard I feel like I lose 10 IQ points. I can use a physical keyboard without looking, but the

I could type 55 wpm on the keyboard. Every time I use a screen keyboard I feel like I lose 10 IQ points. I can use a physical keyboard without looking, but the screen keyboard takes twice as long and consumes my full attention if I want any speed. The blackberry felt like an extension of my brain on the internet. Touchscreen devices feel like an extension of the internet in my brain + eyes, not as nice. I used my blackberry bold for years, then for months more after the battery swelled, until the charging port finally stopped working

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
Do you use Swiftkey-like typing on your keyboard? On my Android phone I find I can type so fast with it, and I barely have to look at the keyboard.
- mushbino 5y ago
  Could you expand on what you're talking about? I'm having a hard time picturing it but I'm interested.
  - pjerem 5y ago
    Swiftkey like keyboards (like … Swiftkey or the iOS one) are keyboards where you write your words by swiping your finger across the letters of the keyboard, releasing your finger between each word. Like this : https://youtu.be/D2XyP7iUErI https://youtu.be/D2XyP7iUErI at 00:17
    - TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
      iOS has swipe to type built in. I used Swiftkey for iOS recently, it’s no better than the built in option, and worse if you disable the spying “feature”.
      - windmark 5y ago
        SwiftKey is for some reason significantly worse on ios than android. I still use it because it has far better correction than the builtin keyboard and I haven't found any other that supports multiple simultaneous languages on ios.
  - lgvld 5y ago
    Check for Swiftkey Keyboard app ;-)
  - buro9 5y ago
    https://support.google.com/gboard/answer/2811346?hl=en-GB&co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid&oco=0 https://support.google.com/gboard/answer/2811346?hl=en-GB&co... Glide / Flow typing where you merely draw an approximate path of the shape that your typing would have followed. It allows for very quick typing on a screen keyboard without the hammering of specific letters.
    - dmitriid 5y ago
      And you have to double-check what you've written because it often guesses incorrectly
- alpaca128 5y ago
  Swiftkey seems nice until you're not an english native speaker, which means you automatically write in 2 languages (native and at least some english). Now good luck having the keyboard guess which dictionary to use for every single word, which can even lead to mistakes if both suggest the same thing (capitalization). I care about not having a wrong word in the middle of every other sentence. And even that doesn't change the simple fact that typing on it is cumbersome. Swiftkey is a little better on average, but still not even close to an actual keyboard.
  - qsi 5y ago
    Actually SwiftKey in multiple languages helps me write in the ones I am less fluent in, due to its autocorrect. I agree it can be annoying too... you have to be careful with activating languages, and I switch off the languages I am unlikely to use in the near future. Still miss my BB though. Edited to add: unlike other commenters here, I never use the glide feature in Swiftkey! I just use it as a better keyboard...
  - ant6n 5y ago
    And the worst is if you write an English sentence with five common words, but the the AI is convinced the fifth one is actually a long and complicated German word. Our brave new world of shit AI keeps making me think about this goomics comic: https://goomics.net/278/ https://goomics.net/278/
  - piaste 5y ago
    I have GBoard in three languages, it guesses the language from the first few words and then 'sticks' to it for the rest of the message. Occasionally it guesses the wrong language if the first word or two are ambiguous, but by manually typing out a word in the right language it quickly adjusts itself. Or if some languages are only used occasionally, you can just put them on a dedicated keyboard and switch with a long press of the spacebar.
    - RicoElectrico 5y ago
      The greatest flaw of GBoard is that it doesn't treat space as just another character that could be mistyped, but as a delimiter that's always assumed to be in the right place. This makes the error rate ridiculous.
- albru123 5y ago
  I used Swiftkey for a few years and thought it couldn't get better... until I found Fleksy. The autocompletion is just superb and nowhere near anything I tried before. It's made for typing without looking or worrying about hitting the right keys, so if you're not really comfortable with Swiftkey-like typing, you might wanna give it a try.
  - oplante 5y ago
    Thanks for supporting Fleksy !
- konfusinomicon 5y ago
  any tips on how you learned it. I've never been able to get it right
- Timpy 5y ago
  I try to use this but I reliably end up getting the wrong word, which leads to some strange swypo typos. Here's a quick test, what I wanted to type on top and what came out on bottom: "I'm a good singer" "In a good dinner"
encryptluks2 5y ago
Reminds me of the Sidekick, but not the one that slides vertically but the one that spun around. God I wish they'd make a modern Android phone like it.
- kilroy123 5y ago
  Honestly, that was my all time favorite phone. It might be nostalgia speaking, but I feel like I loved and enjoyed that phone more than an iPhone.
smcl 5y ago
I loved my blackberry's keyboard, but I adjusted to iOS on-screen keyboard (starting circa the iPhone 4S) pretty well. Last couple of years though iOS autocorrect has started to be extremely aggressive and frequently very wrong (incorrectly changing were->we're, ill->i'll for example. and today changing "Torvalds" to "Torshavn" or something when I was talking about Linus and not the Faroes). If someone has a nice phone with a physical keyboard I'd seriously consider it when I replace my iPhone
- 5etho 5y ago
  there all phone with phycical keyboard, unihertz, even blackberries drop new keybaord phone this year
  - throwaway744678 5y ago
    I hope you did not type this comment on one of those :]
- vincentmarle 5y ago
  > autocorrect has started to be extremely aggressive and frequently very wrong First thing I do when setting up a new phone is turning off auto correct and auto capitalization. Yes, I still make mistakes, but I prefer becoming quite handy at using my backspace button than having to fight the auto correct all damn time.
  - smcl 5y ago
    Yeah for all my complaining, autocorrect is still just about a net benefit but it’s MUCH less than it once was.
    - rubyfan 5y ago
      it’s funny how when it doesn’t work the negative feels is perhaps much stronger than the positive feeling when it works correctly
sammorrowdrums 5y ago
I miss the full keyboard so much. I didn’t need predictive text, had real tactile feedback and that little wheel mouse was pretty good too. The amount of typos and reliance on auto-correct (often incorrectly correcting) proves that this the touchscreen is a somewhat cackhanded input method, even with a full qwerty keyboard on a very large screen. I’m on iPhone Max Pro, still fat-fingering the keys while typing this.
bloopernova 5y ago
Do you ever try using a bluetooth keyboard with a mobile phone? They're certainly not as good as a nice mechanical keyboard, but they can improve the text input experience many times over a screen keyboard.
- colejohnson66 5y ago
  Has anyone ever designed a slide out BT keyboard for phones? It could be a single size part with attachments for the different phone models. Or a pop socket style where it just glues onto your phone/case.
  - bloopernova 5y ago
    That's a really good idea, I like it!
  - rwc 5y ago
    Shot: https://www.cnn.com/2013/12/06/tech/mobile/ryan-seacrest-iphone-startup/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2013/12/06/tech/mobile/ryan-seacrest-iph... Chaser: https://www.theverge.com/2015/6/1/8696991/blackberry-typo-keyboard-lawsuit-settlement https://www.theverge.com/2015/6/1/8696991/blackberry-typo-ke...
TacticalCoder 5y ago
> I could type 55 wpm on the keyboard. Every time I use a screen keyboard I feel like I lose 10 IQ points. This precisely. I don't miss "BlackBerry the ecosystem" but I do really miss "BlackBerry the form factor". For someone "into" keyboards (as in: taking the time to evaluate different switches to see which one I like best, for example), having to input anything on a smartphone is a really sad joke.
fennecfoxy 5y ago
Try swiftkey etc, it's amazing
swman 5y ago
I managed to somehow type on the software keyboard without looking at it with a 95% or so accuracy. However I find that I’m only able to do so on my iPhone SE which is small size.
le-hu 5y ago
I've used to send text messages in the classroom without taking the phone out of my pocket. No-look writing was a thing :)

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago

Do you use Swiftkey-like typing on your keyboard? On my Android phone I find I can type so fast with it, and I barely have to look at the keyboard.

mushbino 5y ago
Could you expand on what you're talking about? I'm having a hard time picturing it but I'm interested.
- pjerem 5y ago
  Swiftkey like keyboards (like … Swiftkey or the iOS one) are keyboards where you write your words by swiping your finger across the letters of the keyboard, releasing your finger between each word. Like this : https://youtu.be/D2XyP7iUErI https://youtu.be/D2XyP7iUErI at 00:17
  - TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
    iOS has swipe to type built in. I used Swiftkey for iOS recently, it’s no better than the built in option, and worse if you disable the spying “feature”.
    - windmark 5y ago
      SwiftKey is for some reason significantly worse on ios than android. I still use it because it has far better correction than the builtin keyboard and I haven't found any other that supports multiple simultaneous languages on ios.
- lgvld 5y ago
  Check for Swiftkey Keyboard app ;-)
- buro9 5y ago
  https://support.google.com/gboard/answer/2811346?hl=en-GB&co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid&oco=0 https://support.google.com/gboard/answer/2811346?hl=en-GB&co... Glide / Flow typing where you merely draw an approximate path of the shape that your typing would have followed. It allows for very quick typing on a screen keyboard without the hammering of specific letters.
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    And you have to double-check what you've written because it often guesses incorrectly
alpaca128 5y ago
Swiftkey seems nice until you're not an english native speaker, which means you automatically write in 2 languages (native and at least some english). Now good luck having the keyboard guess which dictionary to use for every single word, which can even lead to mistakes if both suggest the same thing (capitalization). I care about not having a wrong word in the middle of every other sentence. And even that doesn't change the simple fact that typing on it is cumbersome. Swiftkey is a little better on average, but still not even close to an actual keyboard.
- qsi 5y ago
  Actually SwiftKey in multiple languages helps me write in the ones I am less fluent in, due to its autocorrect. I agree it can be annoying too... you have to be careful with activating languages, and I switch off the languages I am unlikely to use in the near future. Still miss my BB though. Edited to add: unlike other commenters here, I never use the glide feature in Swiftkey! I just use it as a better keyboard...
- ant6n 5y ago
  And the worst is if you write an English sentence with five common words, but the the AI is convinced the fifth one is actually a long and complicated German word. Our brave new world of shit AI keeps making me think about this goomics comic: https://goomics.net/278/ https://goomics.net/278/
- piaste 5y ago
  I have GBoard in three languages, it guesses the language from the first few words and then 'sticks' to it for the rest of the message. Occasionally it guesses the wrong language if the first word or two are ambiguous, but by manually typing out a word in the right language it quickly adjusts itself. Or if some languages are only used occasionally, you can just put them on a dedicated keyboard and switch with a long press of the spacebar.
  - RicoElectrico 5y ago
    The greatest flaw of GBoard is that it doesn't treat space as just another character that could be mistyped, but as a delimiter that's always assumed to be in the right place. This makes the error rate ridiculous.
albru123 5y ago
I used Swiftkey for a few years and thought it couldn't get better... until I found Fleksy. The autocompletion is just superb and nowhere near anything I tried before. It's made for typing without looking or worrying about hitting the right keys, so if you're not really comfortable with Swiftkey-like typing, you might wanna give it a try.
- oplante 5y ago
  Thanks for supporting Fleksy !
konfusinomicon 5y ago
any tips on how you learned it. I've never been able to get it right
Timpy 5y ago
I try to use this but I reliably end up getting the wrong word, which leads to some strange swypo typos. Here's a quick test, what I wanted to type on top and what came out on bottom: "I'm a good singer" "In a good dinner"

encryptluks2 5y ago

Reminds me of the Sidekick, but not the one that slides vertically but the one that spun around. God I wish they'd make a modern Android phone like it.

kilroy123 5y ago
Honestly, that was my all time favorite phone. It might be nostalgia speaking, but I feel like I loved and enjoyed that phone more than an iPhone.

smcl 5y ago

I loved my blackberry's keyboard, but I adjusted to iOS on-screen keyboard (starting circa the iPhone 4S) pretty well. Last couple of years though iOS autocorrect has started to be extremely aggressive and frequently very wrong (incorrectly changing were->we're, ill->i'll for example. and today changing "Torvalds" to "Torshavn" or something when I was talking about Linus and not the Faroes). If someone has a nice phone with a physical keyboard I'd seriously consider it when I replace my iPhone

5etho 5y ago
there all phone with phycical keyboard, unihertz, even blackberries drop new keybaord phone this year
- throwaway744678 5y ago
  I hope you did not type this comment on one of those :]
vincentmarle 5y ago
> autocorrect has started to be extremely aggressive and frequently very wrong First thing I do when setting up a new phone is turning off auto correct and auto capitalization. Yes, I still make mistakes, but I prefer becoming quite handy at using my backspace button than having to fight the auto correct all damn time.
- smcl 5y ago
  Yeah for all my complaining, autocorrect is still just about a net benefit but it’s MUCH less than it once was.
  - rubyfan 5y ago
    it’s funny how when it doesn’t work the negative feels is perhaps much stronger than the positive feeling when it works correctly

sammorrowdrums 5y ago

I miss the full keyboard so much. I didn’t need predictive text, had real tactile feedback and that little wheel mouse was pretty good too. The amount of typos and reliance on auto-correct (often incorrectly correcting) proves that this the touchscreen is a somewhat cackhanded input method, even with a full qwerty keyboard on a very large screen. I’m on iPhone Max Pro, still fat-fingering the keys while typing this.

bloopernova 5y ago

Do you ever try using a bluetooth keyboard with a mobile phone? They're certainly not as good as a nice mechanical keyboard, but they can improve the text input experience many times over a screen keyboard.

colejohnson66 5y ago
Has anyone ever designed a slide out BT keyboard for phones? It could be a single size part with attachments for the different phone models. Or a pop socket style where it just glues onto your phone/case.
- bloopernova 5y ago
  That's a really good idea, I like it!
- rwc 5y ago
  Shot: https://www.cnn.com/2013/12/06/tech/mobile/ryan-seacrest-iphone-startup/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2013/12/06/tech/mobile/ryan-seacrest-iph... Chaser: https://www.theverge.com/2015/6/1/8696991/blackberry-typo-keyboard-lawsuit-settlement https://www.theverge.com/2015/6/1/8696991/blackberry-typo-ke...

TacticalCoder 5y ago

> I could type 55 wpm on the keyboard. Every time I use a screen keyboard I feel like I lose 10 IQ points. This precisely. I don't miss "BlackBerry the ecosystem" but I do really miss "BlackBerry the form factor". For someone "into" keyboards (as in: taking the time to evaluate different switches to see which one I like best, for example), having to input anything on a smartphone is a really sad joke.

fennecfoxy 5y ago

Try swiftkey etc, it's amazing

swman 5y ago

I managed to somehow type on the software keyboard without looking at it with a 95% or so accuracy. However I find that I’m only able to do so on my iPhone SE which is small size.

le-hu 5y ago

I've used to send text messages in the classroom without taking the phone out of my pocket. No-look writing was a thing :)