So, up front, I’ll admit I’m one of those guys that gets hung up on tiny, largely irrelevant quirks in apps. Yeah, I’m great fun at parties.

So, what’s your favourite keyboard app? I keep coming back to SwiftKey. I feel like it’s the best typing experience for me, with fairly accurate prediction and correction — although it’s far from perfect, of course. I’ve seen plenty of people complain about it, and apart from Microsoft adding Bing to it, it’s not received much in the way of innovation or useful updates since they bought it.

I particularly like that a long press on the backspace key will delete one whole word at a time, speeding up the longer you hold it down. I simply haven’t found the backspace methods on Gboard or the Samsung keyboard (which used to be Swype I guess?) to be as predictable or reliable. Gboard’s swipe back doesn’t feel predictable in what it will do, and Samsung’s backspace is more like iOS.

I also find SwiftKey to be the best at remembering sequences of words; if I start typing my address, it’ll generally remember each successive word and offer it as the main prediction on the top row. Samsung and Gboard both do that to some extent, but I just haven’t found them to be as reliably predictable in the results.

On the other hand, I hate that SwiftKey doesn’t can’t add an image to its clipboard. Copying and pasting images is a breeze with both Gboard and Samsung’s keyboard, but with SwiftKey I pretty much have to download/screengrab and upload any image I want to insert in a chat or post.

So, that’s it. Rant over! What’s your favourite keyboard app, and does anything irritate you about it?

  • southsamurai@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I’m still using swype. Nothing else competes, and the two closest are owned by the two companies I’m least willing to use a keyboard by.

  • cultsuperstar@lemmy.mlBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I’m the same way regarding quirks. I’ve been using Gboard and for a while bounced between that and Samsung Keyboard. Gboard has the best overall usability for me but a couple things I’m not a fan of: Gboard deleting clipboard history (only from Gboard as it’s still available elsewhere), and including \ as a long press symbol rather than /,where you have to tsp the symbols key and then tap /.

    Samsung Keyboard has a few quirks as well, but the biggest was predictive text isn’t as good as Gboard. But I like the customization of it. But I can’t see the symbols on the keys as well as I can on Gboard.

    I was a fan of Chroma Keyboard years ago because I liked that it would change color based on the app.

    • Ghoelian@feddit.nlEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      fyi, long-pressing the period key on Gboard gives you some more symbols to choose from, including /.

      also includes some symbols that are already behind other keys which is kinda weird.

      • cultsuperstar@lemmy.mlBEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, I know, but it just seemed weird to include \ when / seems to be more widely used? Or maybe it’s just me lol.

  • Acamon@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    SwiftKey. There’s some things I don’t love about it, but I’m trapped by swipe punctuation and predicting emoji from words. Every so often I get mad at SK and try something else, but it never lasts.

  • gobbling871@lemmy.worldEnglish
    01·
    1 year ago

    I used to love Swiftkey before it sold out to Microsoft. I use Gboard with network permissions off nowadays.

  • artifice@lemmy.worldEnglish
    021·
    1 year ago

    I’ve heard that SwiftKey tracks keystrokes, so I’m in the same boat as you. SwiftKey is incredible, but I’d rather lean more into privacy focused alternatives.