4 ms·

I worked at Swype and then Nuance after the acquisition. My experience with Google keyboard has been very good. The main difference I've noticed over the years

by ktrnka 5y ago

I worked at Swype and then Nuance after the acquisition. My experience with Google keyboard has been very good. The main difference I've noticed over the years is that phones got bigger. Swype was magical on a 3 inch screen but not nearly as good on a 5 inch. If I remember right the core would take the exact touch points less seriously on a small screen but on a big screen usage might go back and forth between very accurate and sloppy. If I had to speculate somewhat, it's possible that newer keyboards take a very principled approach to the code for input recognition. I didn't work on the input matching part at Swype but it was often discussed with great fear, because it was a couple giant functions with tons of conditionals. It had been built up over I think a few years early on but without much documentation. The other thing is that there was a race to the bottom on price, which later led to much smaller teams working on keyboards. There just isn't enough financial incentive to put many resources towards it, compared to something like speech recognition.

user_7832 5y ago
Thank you so much for your comment! (I indeed am continually impressed by HackerNews's capabilities in this regard.) > If I remember right the core would take the exact touch points less seriously on a small screen but on a big screen usage might go back and forth between very accurate and sloppy. Do you mean that the points taken would fluctuate between more and less accurately/precise only the screens, or was the point selection consistent but the results poor? Re: your guess about principled approach, that's kinda funny and ironic how a poorly-written bunch of code can be better than something very precise. > The other thing is that there was a race to the bottom on price Slightly ignorant as a customer but iirc while Swype had a paid option it also had a free option like the competition then (and now). Would this imply that Keyboard companies need external funding/or be bought over by MS etc?

by ktrnka 5y ago

user_7832 5y ago

Thank you so much for your comment! (I indeed am continually impressed by HackerNews's capabilities in this regard.) > If I remember right the core would take the exact touch points less seriously on a small screen but on a big screen usage might go back and forth between very accurate and sloppy. Do you mean that the points taken would fluctuate between more and less accurately/precise only the screens, or was the point selection consistent but the results poor? Re: your guess about principled approach, that's kinda funny and ironic how a poorly-written bunch of code can be better than something very precise. > The other thing is that there was a race to the bottom on price Slightly ignorant as a customer but iirc while Swype had a paid option it also had a free option like the competition then (and now). Would this imply that Keyboard companies need external funding/or be bought over by MS etc?