[HN Gopher] iOS Ships Dvorak, Finally
___________________________________________________________________
iOS Ships Dvorak, Finally
Author : ingve
Score : 164 points
Date : 2022-10-10 11:04 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (weblog.antranigv.am)
(TXT) w3m dump (weblog.antranigv.am)
| xhevahir wrote:
| I tried Dvorak on my Android phone years ago, thinking I would
| gain from having the same layout on both my phone and my
| computer. Since my Dvorak skill was entirely muscle memory,
| though, and I had much better _conscious_ knowledge of QWERTY, I
| got no advantage from it.
| jrm4 wrote:
| Are you serious? Long time Linux guy here and I'm always
| gobsmacked by finding out stuff like this -- knowing that a lot
| of _developers_ use Apple. The extent to which Apple stuff is
| locked down never fails to just strike me as _absurd._
| WorldMaker wrote:
| iOS has supported Dvorak for a long time for hardware keyboards
| (Bluetooth keyboards). The new addition is native support for
| Dvorak in soft keyboards (on-screen keyboards), and even then
| there were 3rd party apps to try (since the virtual keyboard
| can be extended by apps).
| dylanz wrote:
| This is great for people who use an external keyboard with an iOS
| device.
| notjustanymike wrote:
| Meanwhile Android supports morse code.
| mercacona wrote:
| The keyboard layout is for external keyboards too. So it means
| you can use your Dvorak BT-keyboard with your iPhone/iPad.
|
| Not just a fancy key arrangement on your phone's screen ;-)
| jbaber wrote:
| Ah, I've been using some setting on my Samsung phone to make
| bluetooth keyboards dvorak for many years now.
| wartijn_ wrote:
| I think that option has been available since way before ios16.
| The situation for Colemak is still that it's possible to use an
| external keyboard with that layout, but there's no on screen
| keyboard (unless you use a third party keyboard)
| partdavid wrote:
| Ah, okay, that's a useful clarification.
| peatmoss wrote:
| Yeah, I can confirm hardware keyboards have supported Dvorak
| layouts in iOS since ages ago. This change is only for on
| screen, which I am apparently a weirdo for preferring dvorak.
| It was one of the things that stuck in my craw most when
| switching back from Android.
|
| It does take time to learn the Dvorak layout when thumb/swipe
| typing, but I find the propensity for distance between most
| letters, except some common cases that prediction nails, to
| be far preferable to QWERTY.
| nottorp wrote:
| I don't see how that helps on a touch screen. Guess the OP is
| used to it on the desktop.
|
| As a programmer i type pretty fast. Not pro typist fast, I'm
| probably using like 6 fingers. Still, I find the times I need to
| stop and think dwarf any speed improvement I'd get either by
| learning to 10 finger type or using an alternate keyboard layout.
| NickBusey wrote:
| I would put comfort as the main benefit of Dvorak, far before
| speed.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Completely different design goals for swipe keyboard. I think
| I'll pass.
| jccalhoun wrote:
| Back during the Palm Pilot days I was a big fan of the FITALY
| keyboard. I sometimes wish there was a version of it for android.
| raydiatian wrote:
| I use Dvorak for 10 fingers. I use QWERTY for two thumbs. It
| turns out my brain keeps the two separate with no issue
| whatsoever.
| janetacarr wrote:
| I've been using GBoard for Dvorak and it's awful. This is a
| welcome addition.
| keleftheriou wrote:
| What's awful about GBoard on iOS?
| panda888888 wrote:
| I also use Gboard for Dvorak on iOS (well, prior to reading
| this post) and it's laggy and slow. I think that's true for
| all non-native keyboards on iOS, though. I've just switched
| to this new native keyboard option and after 2 minutes of
| playing with it, I can already tell that it's faster.
| raydiatian wrote:
| Brothers and sisters of Dvorak! Hark and come forth!
| jbaber wrote:
| I will be surprised if this post turns up any experienced dvorak
| typists who want an onscreen keyboard to be non-qwerty. I've been
| typing dvorak for over twenty years and prefer all non-touch-type
| keyboards to be qwerty so I can find the keys fastest.
| knorker wrote:
| Well, surprise to you! :-)
|
| I'm not fanatic about iPhone/Android, but if I'd looked into
| switching to iPhone then this would be a hard dealbreaker for
| me.
|
| I've been on Dvorak something like 15 years. All my devices use
| it.
| criddell wrote:
| Do you use a swipe keyboard on your phone?
| peatmoss wrote:
| I do, and I missed being able swipe on ios after moving to
| dvorak. It does take some getting used to, even for a
| dvorak typist, but in my subjective experience, I find the
| dvorak swiping accuracy to be better. I've read the
| reasoned argument that it should be worse, but it hasn't
| been my experience.
| Kerrick wrote:
| I switched to Dvorak in 2009 for touch typing on a full-sized
| keyboard (IBM Model M). When I got my first smartphone (Nexus
| 4), I used a Dvorak keyboard layout for quite a while, but I
| found that the arrangement of the Dvorak layout, so ideal for
| touch typing, actually made two-thumb typing a bit tougher than
| QWERTY on a small mobile device. I switched back to QWERTY on
| mobile permanently when I first got access to a swiping
| keyboard, because there's less ambiguity per pattern (since
| common letters are spaced further apart).
| noroot wrote:
| On computers, with a real keyboard, I prefer blank keycaps. I
| don't mind a qwerty layout, I just set it to dvorak in
| software.
|
| I've been using dvorak for 10+ years now and have always used
| it on my (Android) phone as input method too. In my experience
| it's not a positive nor a negative to use dvorak on a mobile
| phone. My brain is so used to dvorak now that I just keep it on
| dvorak.
| BigJono wrote:
| Yep. Also I don't know about other Dvorak users but I've been
| using blank keyboards for 15 years since there's no point
| having a qwerty layout on there. I didn't even recognise the
| Dvorak layout in the picture.
| Haegin wrote:
| I'm an Android user which has had Dvorak phone keyboards for
| years and I've used them since I switched to Dvorak on the
| desktop. I'm sure there's not the same benefit, but I can touch
| type on my phone pretty well, and I definitely can't do that
| with qwerty. It's probably just habit, but it's nice to have
| the option. I'll definitely be switching over my iPad keyboard.
| panda888888 wrote:
| _hand raised_ Me! I 've been typing Dvorak for 15+ years,
| wanted an iOS version, and previously had to resort to using
| the Gboard app (Google's keyboard app) in order to get this on
| iOS. I'm thrilled this is now available natively.
| dkarl wrote:
| I've been using Dvorak on my computer and QWERTY on my phone
| since I got my first iPhone. Not sure if there's any point
| switching at this point, but I'm glad I can try it and see.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| I was expecting Dvorak to have some huge speed advantage over
| QWERTY and looking it up the evidence that is it faster is
| hearsay and conjecture, not science. My guess would be with
| training and 10 digits, where the keys on the keyboard are simply
| doesn't matter all that much...
| nomel wrote:
| As a Dvorak user for around 20 years now, the reason I
| switched, and the reason I will stay, is comfort (RSI
| specifically). Comfort is the common theme with other Dvorak
| users that I've meet.
|
| For a quick smell test, watch someone type the same sentence
| with Qwerty, and then Dvorak: https://youtu.be/udc9CH8ICVQ
| Bakary wrote:
| Dvorak is not great for phone keyboards because it makes swiping
| words more difficult by crowding the home row. Something like
| KALQ makes more sense.
| [deleted]
| fencepost wrote:
| What I'd love to see is something comparable to the long-hold
| punctuation that's been available on Android keyboards (Swiftkey
| definitely, I think it used to be on Swype) for probably most of
| a decade. Heck, even having the ability to have a number row
| would be nice.
|
| I love that I can type my password at phone start without having
| to change keyboard screens multiple times. Doing the same on iOS
| with the native keyboard would require at least 6 context
| switches.
|
| I can predict one unverifiable thing from the (still!) state of
| the iOS keyboard: Steve Jobs had a sh*tty password.
| voltaireodactyl wrote:
| Heads up: you can swipe from the shift or symbol key to any
| other key on the iOS keyboard to shortcut to the alternate
| outputs (eg "g" becomes either "G" or "(") Which I believe is
| what you're after.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I don't own an iPhone, but most of my family does. One weird
| thing is that you can input numbers without a context-switch on
| an iPad, but (as far as I can tell) you can't on an iPhone;
| drives me a bit mad.
| esrh wrote:
| Maybe I'm just not good enough, but i use Dvorak on
| desktops(~110wpm on typeracer) and still use qwerty on my phone.
| The (perceived) comfort improvement just isn't there for me when
| I'm typing with two thumbs and use a swipe keyboard half the time
| anyway.
| rany_ wrote:
| And here I was, thinking they just replaced the U2 album with the
| works of Antonin Dvorak.
| brendangregg wrote:
| Why not dvorak one-handed (both right and left)? I've tried it
| when I've injured one hand badly, and it's optimized for one-
| handed typing.
| nayuki wrote:
| I was using Dvorak on Android (on-screen soft keyboard) back in
| year 2014. So many features take forever to arrive on iOS, from a
| file browser to customizable keyboards to split-screen apps to
| home screen widgets. If you're a power user who likes
| customization, iOS is not for you.
|
| For me, I don't type much on mobile. I know Dvorak is suboptimal
| because many typos of adjacent keys become real words; for
| example HAT vs. HOT, THAT vs. THAN, THIS vs. THIN. But because I
| type heavily on desktop using Dvorak, it's much less cognitive
| effort for me to use the same keyboard layout on mobile. I did
| try QWERTY on mobile briefly, but I decided it was just not worth
| my brain power to maintain that skill.
| commiepatrol wrote:
| Interesting how this coincides with SwiftKey leaving iOS which
| was the only good option when it came to getting Dvorak.
| xwx wrote:
| I use Dvorak for 'real' keyboard typing but I don't feel an
| advantage from having Dvorak on my phone. If anything, having
| common letters spread out, and not all on the home row, is
| helpful in making swipe patterns more distinct.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Conversation missing here is Dvorak is a stats placed key
| arrangement. Frequent keys placed near the home area. And rare
| keys towards the outside.
|
| What advantage does does this Dvorak put on touch screens? None.
|
| A real Dvorak or Coleman would do something epic: rearrange keys
| radially at two different centers. But still the advantages would
| be dismal. I think.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| I've been touch-typing Dvorak for 30 years (first learned to
| touch-type QUERTY then switched to Dvorak and never went back).
| However, I've been using Querty on mobile phones ever since they
| came out and don't find it to be a problem. The mechanics are so
| different and I'm usually looking at the keyboard anyway, unlike
| touch-typing, that it doesn't conflict the way that it does if I
| try to type Querty on a PC keyboard.
| smeagull wrote:
| I think if you were optimising the goals of a touch screen
| keyboard, your focus would probably be in minimising mistakes,
| and you'd end up with different sized keys.
|
| I doubt you'd end up with Dvorak. I'm also highly skeptical that
| your muscle memory of a real keyboard helps much with a phone
| keyboard. At best it helps you know where the keys are - but
| they're already shifted a bit to deal with the smaller space.
| defluct wrote:
| But not Colemak. macOS has supported both Colemak and Dvorak, and
| I find it infuriating that they not only haven't supported it on
| iOS yet, but even more infuriating that they only added Dvorak.
|
| I can only be thankful that Colemak is supported on external
| keyboards on iPadOS, even though the virtual keyboard doesn't
| support it.
| gwd wrote:
| Why do you want Colemak on your phone? I switched to Colemak
| for my physical keyboard years ago, and didn't keep up my
| QWERTY skills, so I'm fairly crippled typing on a QWERTY
| keyboard; but I have trouble typing on my phone with my thumbs.
|
| Presumably people like us are exactly why it's included on
| external keyboards for iPadOS.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| I too use Colemak for physical keyboards and Qwerty for soft
| keyboards.
|
| It is nice to have the consistency available. Though, I don't
| really have a need for it. Only case I can thing of is typing
| a few, key memorized passwords. I don't really remember the
| actual password, just the motions. Kind of a pain to motion
| it out and translate it to qwerty.
| aendruk wrote:
| I used to use Colemak on Android before I switched to iOS. As
| nice as layout parity was in principle, it was noticeably unfit
| for swipe typing. Too many words just ping-ponged along the
| home row.
| nomel wrote:
| I used Dvorak on Android, before switching to iOS. Same
| problem, of course. It was nearly unusable with swipe (my now
| preferred input). It made me realize how badly a swipe
| optimized keyboard is needed.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| Colemak wouldn't be as useful for thumb typing or swipe typing
| as QWERTY.
|
| The hardware keyboard support is adequate for my needs (on iOS
| too, it's handy to fold open a Bluetooth keyboard to use with
| your phone) and I've never seen a need for Colemak in the
| software keyboards. I can't properly touch type on an iPad even
| if it supported Colemak because there's no "touch" there and I
| wouldn't want to accidentally ruin my touch typing skills with
| a "watch the keyboard" fake touch typing device. Easy enough to
| just have Bluetooth hardware keyboards handy. The iPad even has
| nice ones that attach by magnets and act as covers so they are
| always around.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| chairmanwow1 wrote:
| I use dvorak for my computer, but I think the design goals of
| QWERTY are actually useful for the small keyboard of a phone
| being used with thumbs.
|
| It was designed to put diphthongs on opposite sides of the
| keyboard so that a mechanical typewriter wouldn't jam as
| frequently. I think avoiding "jams" with my thumbs is definitely
| the way to think about it.
|
| All of this is speculation because I haven't had the chance to
| try it our yet ( deg [?]? deg)
| sph wrote:
| Indeed, there is no gain whatsoever in adopting a keyboard that
| puts all the most used characters in the home row if you're
| just tapping with two thumbs.
|
| A better layout for smartphones, if one had to design it, would
| try to put all characters in two circles around the thumbs,
| while putting symbols and the least frequent ones towards the
| centre, requiring some extension of the thumbs to reach.
| tjoff wrote:
| The gain is probably to have a consistent layout across
| devices.
| sph wrote:
| There is no need. It's a different type of muscle memory.
|
| I've been learning to use a split ortholinear keyboard, and
| it exercises a different type of muscle memory than a
| regular keyboard, which is even different than on-screen
| keyboards. I have a different layout in each and I haven't
| lost any speed whatsoever.
| knorker wrote:
| I disagree. When for one reason or another I have to use
| a phone that uses qwerty I have to hunt and peck, with a
| large emphasis on "hunt".
| tjoff wrote:
| Split orthogonal isn't at all comparable to a different
| layout.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| I wouldn't be so sure. I (a QWERTY user) remember picking
| up my first phone with a non-numeric keyboard (Nokia E63,
| a Symbian-based QWERTY-keyboard phone) and instantly
| starting typing with my thumbs virtually blindly. I
| expected a long learning period; there wasn't.
| Thiez wrote:
| I have been typing Dvorak for about 15 years, give or
| take (I had been typing qwerty before that). A couple of
| years after the switch I started to play World of
| Warcraft, and I thought it was too much effort to rebind
| all the keys (they assumed qwerty), so I just played it
| on qwerty. My brain quickly learned to associate the game
| with the keyboard layout, so I would type qwerty at full
| speed when chatting in-game. Typing qwerty on someone
| else's computer was much harder and required some
| conscious effort. I wonder if mentally switching between
| keyboard layouts is similar to switching between speaking
| different languages.
| macNchz wrote:
| This is an interesting anecdote. Despite a longtime
| interest, I've been hesitant to bother trying alternative
| keyboard layouts because even with only really minor
| changes to shortcuts (capslock replaced with ctrl, emacs
| text navigation bindings for all apps) typing on an
| unfamiliar computer is almost comically bad, but I have
| gotten used to specific apps that don't play nice with my
| bindings (I'm looking at you Github text boxes stealing
| ctrl+e!).
| robin_reala wrote:
| I have an en-Intl Macbook that I work on personal
| projects on, and a Swedish Macbook for work. I find that
| I can swap between them fairly trivially, but as soon as
| I open Slack on my personal machine to quickly respond to
| a work query I'm completely at sea.
| partdavid wrote:
| It does seem to require some mental "switch" or trick. If
| I look at the keyboard (assuming it's got QWERTY on the
| keycaps, which all of my keyboards have had), it
| "reminds" me to type QWERTY and I can do it. It's not
| really full-speed or facile but it's good enough and it's
| not hunt-and-peck, anyway. If I look away, I cannot type
| QWERTY.
| jmcgough wrote:
| I picked up dvorak over summer vacation in high school
| because I was having bad wrist pain. My high school
| wouldn't let me use dvorak, so I painfully had to re-
| rewire my brain for qwerty in our high school labs.
|
| I quickly realized that my brain would use dvorak for my
| mechanical keyboard at home but would only use qwerty on
| the soft keyboards at school.
| thewebcount wrote:
| Note that this also affected iPadOS where many of us have a
| full keyboard. It was a real pain switching between the 2
| when going from computer to iPad. Thankfully, they added it
| to iPadOS, too, so now I don't have to.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| iPadOS has supported Dvorak for Hardware Keyboards for a
| long time. There's a separate picker for Hardware Keyboard
| Layout than Software Keyboard Layout.
| klodolph wrote:
| There's a Japanese smartphone layout which is really fast.
| It's based on the number pad.
|
| There are 9 base consonants (K S T N H M Y R W) and 5 vowels
| (A I U E O), and every syllable is either vowel or consonant
| + vowel. Digits 0-9 on the number pad correspond with the
| consonants (including "no consonant"), and then you swipe in
| a different direction for a different vowel (4 vowels for
| swiping in a direction, 1 vowel for not swiping).
|
| Nice, big chunky buttons you can press with one thumb on one
| hand, and each time you press one of those big, chunky
| buttons, you get an entire syllable. After a little bit of
| practice, I can type on this layout much faster than I can
| type in English, even though my Japanese is not very good.
| chaorace wrote:
| There's also an English implementation of this same layout
| concept on Android and iOS called MessageEase[1]. I've been
| using it for almost 10 years now and have been quite happy
| with the support over time.
|
| You can consistently type without looking at the keyboard
| once you learn the layout, which I've found to be great for
| note-taking
|
| [1]: https://www.exideas.com/ME/index.php
| meatmanek wrote:
| I switched to this keyboard for my Wanikani reviews because
| I find I make fewer typos with it, but I personally find it
| slower than the QWERTY-based romaji input.
|
| Words that use unvoiced, full-size kana are super fast
| (especially if it has a bunch of a vowels like atatakai,
| which takes 4 taps and 1 swipe instead of 8 taps in
| romaji), but words with lots of voiced consonants and small
| kana need you to tap the modifier button a bunch (e.g.
| zatsupi requires seven taps+swipes, instead of just 5 taps
| on the romaji input).
| SteveMoody73 wrote:
| I don't know if it's a common feature or just part of the
| Samsung Keyboard app, but when the phone is rotated it does
| seperate they keyboard quite nicely so you can access each
| half with your thumbs. Space in the middle is a little wasted
| though.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I don 't know if it's a common feature or just part of the
| Samsung Keyboard app, but when the phone is rotated it does
| seperate they keyboard quite nicely so you can access each
| half with your thumbs._
|
| Available on iPads, but not on iPhones at this time.
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207521
| doodpants wrote:
| There used to be a keyboard layout designed specifically for
| handheld touchscreen devices called Fitaly[1]. I used this
| layout on my Palm Pilot back in the day.
|
| [1] https://textware.com/fitaly/fitaly.htm
| AprilArcus wrote:
| Fitaly is neat, but it's optimized for a single stylus with
| high precision, rather than two thumbs with low precision.
| Jonovono wrote:
| Agree. I use dvorak on my laptop, and tried it on my iPhone for
| a couple weeks but it just didn't work. Your explanation makes
| sense!
| Alex3917 wrote:
| I think this reasoning is sound. As someone who has exclusively
| used Dvorak on computers for decades, I currently see no reason
| to switch over on iOS.
|
| Now maybe the next generation will find that Dvorak on iOS is
| no worse, and if they use it they can avoid learning a second
| layout. But for existing Dvorak users who also were forced to
| learn QWERTY at some point, it's hard to see many switching
| over.
| lelag wrote:
| I've been using Dvorak layout exclusively on my computers for
| over 20 years and I totally agree with you, QWERTY is just a
| better option on a phone.
|
| Some years ago, I set up my Android phone to use Dvorak layout
| but I quickly reverted to QWERTY, without being able to use my
| muscle memory, it was actually a very frustrating experience.
|
| Because most Dvorak users do not use a keyboard labeled with
| the dvorak layout, you never really learn visually where the
| keys are and you only know the layout in your muscle memory
| which does not translate at all to using a touchscreen keyboard
| on a phone.
| partdavid wrote:
| But wouldn't you use Dvorak with a larger device (so that
| you're typing on the on-screen keyboard conventionally) or
| that you use with an external keyboard? I use Android devices
| this way and until this story it honestly didn't occur to me
| that iOS wouldn't support the equivalent.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| I typed a long refutation of this theory before deciding to
| back theory up with facts by looking up a study.
|
| https://userinterfaces.aalto.fi/typing37k/resources/Mobile_t...
|
| > Finger usage: Participants who reported to use two fingers
| were significantly faster than those who used only one finger
| (M = 37.7, SD = 13.2 versus M = 29.2, SD = 10.7, p < 0.001, d =
| 0.66). A closer look at the reported typing posture shows that
| the use of different hands and fingers had a significant impact
| on performance. Over 82% of participants typed using two
| thumbs. Confirming the findings of prior work [3 , 7], this was
| the fastest way to enter text
|
| Turns out I'm weird it seems you should and indeed most people
| do use two thumbs. Given that fact your theory seems extremely
| plausible.
| maxekman wrote:
| I was going to say the exact same thing; to cram the fingers in
| a small "home row" on a touch screen makes no sense at all. But
| the opposite does!
| jerf wrote:
| I use swiping almost exclusively, and HN has discussed before
| how Dvorak is actually _really bad_ for that:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7110619 , but the article
| is broken, so see
| https://web.archive.org/web/20150320170000/http://minuum.com...
| .
|
| Having all the vowels next to each other, and so many words in
| English that differ just by vowels, is actually really hard on
| the swiping algorithm. As I mention in the comments of that
| article, it is likely that QWERTY is not optimal for that use
| case either, but it's a lot closer. Despite using Dvorak for
| almost everything else, including typing this comment right
| now, I have no use or desire for it on mobile phones. YMMV, of
| course.
| bscphil wrote:
| A lot of different people have come up with metrics for the
| optimality of a given keyboard layout. This has given rise to
| various unusual layouts that are the optimal layout for a
| given metric. [1]
|
| I wonder if the same could be done for a swipe based phone
| layout. Seems like you'd end up with something very different
| than Dvorak and probably quite different than Qwerty as well.
| Perhaps part of the metric could give a bonus to layouts that
| were similar to some other layout, thus creating Qwerty-phone
| and Dvorak-phone alternative layouts.
|
| As someone who types with Dvorak on the computer, I'd happily
| attempt to learn a new layout for phones. My error rate is
| extremely high with swipe keyboards, even though I use
| Qwerty.
|
| [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20220926205948/https://mkweb.
| bcg...
| geowwy wrote:
| We don't really know the design process for QWERTY but it
| wasn't about avoiding mechanical jams. Avoiding mechanical jams
| was the reason Dvorak was invented.
|
| QWERTY if anything seems to be about being convenient for
| transcribing Morse code. Letters with a similar Morse code are
| grouped etc.
| simiones wrote:
| You're right about the first part (we don't really know why
| QWERTY was designed the way that it was), but as far as I
| understand it's pretty clear that Dvorak was created to
| enhance typing speed and comfort, based on ergonomic
| principles not related to mechanical details. For example, it
| is designed to alternate typing between the two hands for
| most common letter combinations, and to have most common
| letters on the home row.
| theonemind wrote:
| I've heard that that the letters for 'typewriter' all
| appear in the top row so a salesman could type that as a
| demonstration. Perhaps apocryphal.
| bufo wrote:
| Came here to say this! Same for me.
| contr-error wrote:
| Well put...
| skrap wrote:
| As a former iOS engineer at Apple, and a dvorak user, I can
| verify that this is _exactly_ the thinking (during my time) of
| why dvorak support wasn 't a development priority. The
| properties which make it good for typing make it bad for a
| phone keyboard.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| I'm surprised to hear this. It seems like the point is
| clearly to allow existing Dvorak (desktop) users to avoid
| switching formats when they switch devices. It shouldn't
| matter whether Dvorak is optimal for typing on a phone.
| ehzy wrote:
| This really doesn't matter because the "muscle memory"
| doesn't carry between the two formats.
| saurik wrote:
| And yet, somehow, I feel like it was a lot faster for me
| to learn how to type on an iPhone--nearly instant, really
| --because it was using QWERTY instead of having the
| letters in a random order, so it isn't clear to me that
| what you are saying matters even if it were true.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| Yes, and as others point out iOS has long supported
| Dvorak (and Colemak and a few others) where that desktop
| muscle memory matters: when using a hardware keyboard via
| Bluetooth.
|
| Qwerty is useful for "swipe typing" on a touch screen and
| Dvorak/Colemak is great for touch typing on hardware and
| the way "muscle memory" works those are such different
| media/muscle movements that they have separate "muscle
| memory".
| copperx wrote:
| True. I was happy when I switched to Android because
| Dvorak was available as an on screen keyboard. I didn't
| last for more than a day with it. Dvorak is terrible for
| on screen typing.
| panda888888 wrote:
| Disagree. I've been almost an exclusive Dvorak user for
| 15+ years, and the muscle memory absolutely carries over.
| riversflow wrote:
| The muscle memory of touch typing, by definition of
| muscle memory, does not carry over to thumb typing.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_memory
| shhsshs wrote:
| Good point. Though a significant part of typing speed is
| your _spacial_ memory (where is the J key on the
| keyboard?).
|
| Your _muscle_ memory makes you good at moving your
| fingers (or thumbs) to an absolute position on your
| keyboard (or screen) - but to do that you must first
| decide what absolute position your finger (or thumb)
| should move to (where is the J key?).
| irrational wrote:
| Was there any research into what keyboard would be the ideal
| phone layout (presumably something entirely new)?
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Back in the Days of Yore we had something called "Fitaly",
| which was supposed to be optimized for pen typing:
| https://textware.com/fitaly/fitaly.htm
| mjcohen wrote:
| I loved Fitaly and the associated ecosystem. Palm,
| Handspring, the usable stylus on a 160x160 screen...
| com2kid wrote:
| Few years ago someone posted a link on HN of a keyboard
| that was designed for optimum swiping, fewest overlaps and
| what not.
|
| It faced the same problem as all new keyboard designs,
| getting people to use it.
|
| If you are on Android, you can find plenty of research
| project keyboards that are indeed more efficient to use,
| after you get over the learning curve.
| copperx wrote:
| It made sense to me. Luckily, Dvorak support for hardware
| keyboards has been always available on iOS.
| partdavid wrote:
| This seems like sound logic as long as iOS is only used for
| phones and an on-screen keyboard; but isn't it used for the
| iPad as well? And wouldn't a lack of Dvorak support mean you
| can't use it with your standard external keyboard?
|
| I don't know, I'm not an iOS user but it would hugely
| inconvenience me if the only way I could use Dvorak on
| Android is to use a keyboard with a hardware Dvorak layout.
|
| _Edit: Indeed, it appears that iOS supports Dvorak layout
| for external keyboards already; this is supporting the native
| on-screen keyboard_
| bscphil wrote:
| > Indeed, it appears that iOS supports Dvorak layout for
| external keyboards already
|
| This is a little ambiguous, I assume you mean a (rare)
| hardware Dvorak keyboard, not that iOS supports remapping a
| standard ANSI external keyboard to Dvorak - but correct me
| if that's wrong.
| Marsymars wrote:
| Yes, your assumption here is off - iOS supports remapping
| standard external keyborads to Dvorak. I'm typing this on
| Dvorak on my iPad with a standard Logitech keyboard
| connected via the Smart Connector.
| bscphil wrote:
| That's good to know, thanks!
| knorker wrote:
| Oh? I thought this would be important on the phone too.
|
| Not the home row thing, but the fact that vowels are on the
| left hand side, so that two thumbs will alternate as much as
| possible (alternating left and right hand fingers being an
| explicit goal of Dvorak).
| [deleted]
| contr-error wrote:
| That's one hell of a mind fuck! I wouldn't know what to do with
| that keyboard (at first) and I've been typing with Dvorak for
| ages. If you're touch typing, you never look at the keyboard, so
| I just don't recognize this layout (visually). Still, great news.
|
| If I had a tablet device or regularly used one, I'd be able to
| get used to the seeing the layout. Maybe then there'd be a
| improvement when thumb-typing on a phone-sized device, but I
| agree with the other commenter that it probably wouldn't be worth
| the hassle. Something to check out in a couple of years, when I
| end up with a device that runs iOS 16.
| ipqk wrote:
| I switched over to Dvorak 20 years ago on the keyboard to the
| point where I cannot type on a qwerty keyboard at all anymore (If
| I'm forced to, I hunt & peck really slowly). When the first
| iPhone came out, it was no problem at all because typing with two
| thumbs was just an entirely different experience and my mind
| didn't really conflate the two.
|
| I just tried this dvorak keyboard, and it's like switching to
| dvorak 20 years ago -- it's hard. The backspace in a completely
| different position doesn't help at all either.
| turnsout wrote:
| Agreed, the new position for the delete key is the biggest
| barrier for me.
|
| But in general it's surprising how much muscle memory I have
| for QWERTY on the phone. I've been a Dvorak user since 1996,
| but I didn't last 5 minutes with Dvorak on iOS.
| ledauphin wrote:
| I'm surprised the conversation here is focused on whether Dvorak
| is useful on mobile (with - unsurpisingly - many differing
| opinions) rather than the issue of openness.
|
| Why don't iOS and Android allow plug-and-play layouts with their
| built in keyboards? It would be low complexity and put
| power/accessibility back into the hands of users.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| > Why don't iOS and Android allow plug-and-play layouts with
| their built in keyboards? It would be low complexity and put
| power/accessibility back into the hands of users.
|
| The worry that said app would find _some_ way to exfiltrate
| what the user types, perhaps? What with passwords being typed
| with keyboards and all that.
| [deleted]
| tadfisher wrote:
| Android does! The API is quite esoteric, but I've built a
| custom layout before for the Pixel C, way back when. You ship a
| special XML layout file in your APK that gets picked up by the
| input framework.
| ledauphin wrote:
| it seems like this is a per-application setting rather than a
| per-user setting? which would almost entirely negate its
| usefulness in my opinion.
| bjelkeman-again wrote:
| I just want simple things as having the keyboard layout on iOS
| and iPadOS to actually be the same. On 15.6.1 on both devices,
| the international keyboard key and the shift key has switched
| place in the different OSs. So I always end up hitting the
| wrong key for shift/change keyboard. This is a fairly basic and
| stupid design bug.
| paxys wrote:
| Isn't allowing third-party keyboards with any layout they want
| the definition of openness? You could always have Dvorak on
| iOS. Why does it need to be natively supported?
| dbbk wrote:
| > Why don't iOS and Android allow plug-and-play layouts with
| their built in keyboards?
|
| If you surveyed 1000 people if they would like to switch from a
| QWERTY keyboard... I imagine you would get one person say yes.
| If that.
| scaredginger wrote:
| Most of us agree that we like open systems; it's also well
| established that certain companies have a tendency to design
| closed systems. What do you think needs discussing here that
| hasn't already been discussed in hundreds of other HN threads?
| jobs_throwaway wrote:
| Why is OP expected to have participated in or read hundreds
| of other threads?
| danpalmer wrote:
| I think it's much higher complexity than you may be giving it
| credit for. Each of the keyboards is likely "hand-positioned",
| or there must be a very complex rules engine to cope with the
| myriad screen sizes, layout row and column count, the fact that
| columns are staggered, plus the hover behaviour for extra
| symbols, and that's not even counting things like Pinyin inputs
| or swipe inputs for symbol based languages. Oh and then there's
| the ML models for predictive text, spelling correction, key hit
| box detection, and swipe typing.
|
| All this complexity means that you essentially need UI and
| logic to implement keyboards in the general case, and both
| platforms allow for third party keyboards, albeit with tight
| security controls given their privileged position.
| jenny91 wrote:
| There are so many keyboard layouts for different countries
| and variations thereof. I very much doubt it's hand-
| positioned. The layout is not that hard, you can use a fairly
| straighforward linear constraint solver to lay it out on
| various different screen sizes. Surely at this level of
| localization it's more than an afternoon's worth, but I it's
| not hard in the grand scheme of things.
| danpalmer wrote:
| Maybe it's not quite hand-positioned for every screen, but
| with the level of detail necessary in the constraints for a
| constraint solver to be able to do it, I think that might
| as well be considered hand-positioning in some sense.
|
| Also, it's only anecdotal, but in ~10 years of installing
| day-1 betas of iOS, I've yet to see an autolayout bug on
| the keyboard. Admittedly I'm using British English which
| I'm sure sees a lot of QA testing, but incorrect
| constraints would probably be a hot spot for issues, and
| I've seen autolayout bugs in a ton of other software, so my
| guess is still that it's not really that automated.
| azinman2 wrote:
| What makes you assume the keyboard is built with auto
| layout? It's optional and adds overhead.
| snazz wrote:
| I think this is it. There are a bunch of tiny details in the
| iOS soft keyboard that make typing more accurate and I bet a
| lot of the behavior is hard-coded. For example, if you use
| the split keyboard layout on the iPad and you try to hit the
| Y key with your left thumb even though it's on the right side
| keyboard, the software will fudge it to make it work anyway.
| If you shift your thumbs while you're typing and suddenly
| you've crossed the border onto another key, it seems like it
| shifts the hit boxes slightly to compensate (I'm not sure how
| to reproduce this one 100% of the time though).
| beebmam wrote:
| It's not THAT hard. The problem is that very few people use
| alternative keyboard layouts. In proprietary
| software/hardware, there's just not a lot of incentive to
| satisfy the needs of small minority of users. In the open
| source world, at least there's the possibility that
| individuals in these minority communities would be willing to
| make changes.
| WirelessGigabit wrote:
| They do. You can build custom keyboards for both. It's just
| that this is native iOS, which is important because iOS allows
| disabling custom keyboards in certain contexts (passwords) or
| completely.
| spiffytech wrote:
| I've tried several 3rd party Dvorak keyboards for iOS and
| they all feel subtly broken. It gave me the impression that
| making a 3rd party keyboard feel good must take a lot of
| work, effort which doesn't get put in when the goal is just
| enabling a single layout.
| [deleted]
| JasonFruit wrote:
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