[HN Gopher] Show HN: A 2-row, 16-key keyboard designed for smart...
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Show HN: A 2-row, 16-key keyboard designed for smartphones
Mobile keyboards today are almost entirely based on the 26-key,
3-row QWERTY layout. Here's a new 2-row, 16-key alternative
designed specifically for smartphones.
Author : QWERTYmini
Score : 35 points
Date : 2025-12-10 17:49 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (k-keyboard.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (k-keyboard.com)
| teach wrote:
| You might want to throw a CDN in front of this -- the site is
| realllllly struggling and seems very complex under the hood.
|
| Cool idea though.
| mgr86 wrote:
| I threw it at archive.is for them.
|
| https://archive.is/gW1rO
| QWERTYmini wrote:
| Thanks for archiving it ^^
|
| really appreciate the help!
| QWERTYmini wrote:
| Thanks for letting me know! The website isn't optimized yet, so
| it's running slower than usual. I'll work on improving it soon.
| Really appreciate your interest!
| MontyCarloHall wrote:
| Smartphone keyboards dynamically adjust the "hitbox" of each key
| based on what's previously been typed and overall letter
| frequencies of the language. So when typing "Paris is the capital
| of Fr..." [*], the A key becomes much easier to hit than its
| neighbors. Fun fact: back in the day, when this tech was less
| refined, certain letter contexts made the hitboxes of some keys
| effectively nonexistent [0].
|
| I wonder if an approach like KKeyboard with larger but statically
| combined keys leads to faster typing than the current approach
| with smaller but dynamically "combined" keys.
|
| [*] In reality, the context is modeled using a simple Hidden
| Markov Model with a much smaller effective context window that
| could not associate "Paris" and "France." But you get the idea.
|
| [0] https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/impossible-to-type-
| okee...
| quamserena wrote:
| Omg I thought this was just me. How do I turn this off? On iOS,
| this has been bugging me for a long time.
| devmor wrote:
| I would love a way to turn it off as well, this is the source
| of the majority of my annoying typos.
| shakna wrote:
| There is no builtin setting in iOS to disable it. However
| most 3rd party keyboards don't have it, as implementing it
| without OS support is a huge pain.
| QWERTYmini wrote:
| Thanks for the thoughtful point! Hitbox behavior is largely
| constrained by OS -level policies from the manufacturers, so
| major improvements on that side are difficult for now. At this
| stage, I'm mainly trying to evaluate the layout and the input
| method itself - and hopefully, in the future, issues like
| hitbox tuning can be improved as well.
| rationalist wrote:
| I always make the same typos in Gboard. I don't know if they
| adjust the hotboxes based on common letter sequences, but it
| would be nice if they adjusted it based on people's typing
| performance.
| browningstreet wrote:
| Not successfully though. Half the time I hit b or n in place of
| space. I can type numerous words before I notice. I've thought
| about just making a new iPhone keyboard app with just a big
| space bar.
|
| The iPhone keyboard is the least successful tech I use each
| day.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| I'm not following.
|
| * Does this still expect you to hit every key but some of them
| need multiple taps?
|
| * Are they doing fancy autocorrect-like magic to decide which
| letter you _meant_ , and if so why use this instead of taking it
| one more step and using http://minuum.com/ ?
|
| * Or is it something else?
| QWERTYmini wrote:
| Yes, all characters are entered with tap or double-tap, and it
| also supports simultaneous taps as an advanced option. It's
| fully local, with no autocorrect or prediction. Minuum
| compresses QWERTY into one row, but QWERTY mini keeps the
| QWERTY structure to preserve the familiar typing experience.
| Thanks for your interest!
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| So like, to type "x" a person would hit the dx key twice?
|
| I guess that's better for precise typing, but for normal
| prose it's probably faster+easier to just type blindly and
| let the machine figure out what you mean.
| QWERTYmini wrote:
| Both with- and without-autocorrect have their pros and
| cons. This layout could also work well if predictive
| features are added later.
| morsch wrote:
| I mean for one thing Minuum is dead, the play store link is 404
| and the last time I tried it it didn't work perfectly with
| recent Android versions. Which is sad because it was great when
| it was still maintained.
| nullpilot wrote:
| I believe Minuum is the only app I ever paid for on the Play
| Store, after having followed it since the Kickstarter
| campaign. It was the only option that made typing on a small
| touchscreen feel mostly frictionless for me, contrary to the
| varying degrees of frustration of other options. As a result,
| I now hardly type on my phone.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| That's odd, it works fine on my Android 15 phone.
| highwind wrote:
| I like it but I wish I can change the size of the keyboard.
| Buttons are too small on my phone.
| ugh123 wrote:
| Seems like there's 25% wasted space at the bottom for the
| language globe icon that could be used for something useful
| QWERTYmini wrote:
| Good point. I'm not sure why Apple designed it that way either.
| Anyway, the globe icon area is required by the OS, so its size
| can't be reduced. Thanks for the feedback!
| 2earth wrote:
| Nice idea, I might try it!
|
| I noticed "copyright info goes here (c) 2025" - which you might
| want to update!
| toast0 wrote:
| > I noticed "copyright info goes here (c) 2025" - which you
| might want to update!
|
| It's still 2025, so that's fine :P post-Berne Convention, there
| are no forms required for copyright protection to vest, merely
| fixing the work upon a medium is sufficient.
| Xiol wrote:
| So vibe coded slop that clearly hasn't been reviewed is going
| to have access to all my input.
|
| Interesting idea, but that's a pass from me.
| schainks wrote:
| Reminds me of the abominable parking ticket machine keyboards in
| Rome
| (https://www.wantedinrome.com/i/cover/storage/uploads/2018/12...)
| stevage wrote:
| I don't really understand how people manage to type with two
| thumbs while holding their phone securely. I use my left thumb
| and my right index finger, with my right thumb supporting the
| base of the phone.
| wffurr wrote:
| I use my left pinky to hold the base of the phone. Lots of
| people with bigger phones use one of those stick on things on
| the back and hold it with their index and middle finger.
| rtkwe wrote:
| +1 for the pinky phone shelf. Worked better when phones were
| smaller and lighter now I have a popsocket on the back and
| hold it either between the middle and index or middle and
| ring depending on what I'm doing. Sometimes with middle and
| index the pinky comes out again to stabilize the phone too.
| AAAAaccountAAAA wrote:
| Looks nice. Reminds me of MessagEase[1] and clones, such as
| ThumbKey[2]. I use the latter for my mobile text input needs.
| However, that method is sometimes prone to typos, since one key
| may have up to 9 different characters assigned to it, and it is
| easy to swipe slightly wrong way. QWERTYmini could be better in
| that aspect, since there are only 2 characters per key.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MessagEase
|
| 2. https://github.com/dessalines/thumb-key
| mmh0000 wrote:
| I really dislike how iOS handles dictation as a keyboard feature.
|
| I want to try this keyboard, but I also don't want to give up
| dictation. If I have to switch back to the iOS keyboard to enable
| dictation, that's just enough friction that I'm not going to move
| to something else.
| tomtomistaken wrote:
| Looks nice. Can I swipe write with it?
| chente wrote:
| Reminds of T9 texting and I did like T9. I'll have to try this.
| postoplust wrote:
| Site seems down, try https://archive.is/gW1rO
| rcarmo wrote:
| Hmmm. Cute. I use a Bluehand
| (https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2023/08/08/1230), which is
| physical and has... half the keys, but that relies on chording. I
| might take a look at the idea of doing a 20-key physical keyboard
| that looks like this.
| thebeardisred wrote:
| I noticed "International patent (PCT/KR2025/099177),
| International Publication "
|
| Are you truly seeking a software patent for this? If so what is
| the plan for leveraging ownership over the patent?
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(page generated 2025-12-10 23:01 UTC)