FloType Public Beta is Here!

Hello.
It says the beta is full. Though I'd love to try this out when it officially releases. Nice work. I was a huge fan of FlickType. Will there be an Apple Watch version as well?

Hi, it looks very promising, using it as of now and it has brought back some memories haha. Its responsive on iphone, working well, nice and fast. Sometimes it does have a mind of its own, but I’m just hoping that’s more voiceover doing what it likes to do or just early quirks of the product. Only question is if I’m typing, how do I insert a new line? Other than that no issues at all, hoping it’ll learn about my typing soon and give me top accuracy, but it’s certainly improving quickly, and I’m enjoying using it. Keep up the top development, and I look forward to seeing how it improves over time! Ok, onemore point, I don’t know if it’s a bug or an iphone thing, but when I’ve been typing this out in the text field, I’ve noticed it doesn’t always like putting in a space? There’s an example there with the one more part, I left it there so you can see what I mean. Other than that, amazing, and thank you for putting the work in on this!!

I used both Fleksy and FlickType and have missed having that option. Thank you so much for creating this app!! I've just signed up for the beta.

Since Flexy and FlickType went bye bye it would be nice if this was open source in case something happens and you're unable to continue updating the project, then others can keep it alive if need be.

Hi,.If it’s safari related, you’ve answered the question, it was happening in safari mainly, but that’s fine. Thank you forthe info, glad I know why. Other than that it’s fine, and I’ve used it for everything with no issue sinceI installed it.. Its definitely my preferred keyboard already

Wow, it’s great to finally see someone picking up this type of keyboard again!

I’ve just installed the beta and I’m looking forward to giving it a proper test run over the next few hours and days.

One thing the older apps never really supported was languages beyond English (and maybe a few major ones like Spanish). I live in Norway—would it be possible to support a Norwegian dictionary, including the additional letters æ, ø, and å?

Also, do you have any plans to expand this to Apple Watch in the future, with a functional keyboard for text input there?

Really excited to see where this goes 👍🏻

Good morning,
I am a member of Blind Information Technology Solutions, (BITS) & there a numerous individuals within the organization who know a lot more about developing open-source software than myself, but I’d love to learn more.
I’d also love to see this app become open-source, so if something happens to its current developer, someone from BITS could take over & it could continue.

I also a have a question about the use of the app, when an Apple Watch is connected to the user’s iPhone:
I have no idea how they managed to pull it off, but Flicktype actually had an Apple Watch app.
If I want to be able to type on my watch, I must stick to the Apple keyboard, otherwise, I lose that ability, as it no longer appears in my list of input options when responding to a text, for example.
So, my question is:
How does this keyboard app handle that situation?

Aswipe right and hold will enter a new line. Also, there is a return key at the bottom right.

Thanks for that, for those who don’t know there are instructions in the app too which I luckily found earlier, I was going mad haha, but thanks for telling me about the return key, that will certainly be useful

I am also wondering if this will be available on apple watch?

Just something minor here, the keyboard dismiss sound sounds a bit like the start recording sound, I mean , maybe I.imagined it? But may not be great for making enemies around you 😂

There is a settings button in the top left and an info button in the top right.

Just got an apple watch and think it would be really good. Would speed up typing a lot

Hello,

First, for a first beta, I have been hoping for something like this to come back, and I love it.
I have had a few issues where I cannot type. I am told that I am in the typin area, but when I try to start typing, nothing gets typed. VO just keeps saying, Keyboard area.
Also, I'd like to be able to use it in full screen, but can we havce a jester to dismiss it? This way, we can see the rest of the controls on the screen. all in all, great start.

A touch within the keyboard area will first engage the keyboard, then begin typing.

I am also seeing this on my iPhone 15 Pro using iOS 26.6.

Ah, now that I just played around with this a bit more, I see that an extra option has been added to my rotor. The extra rotor item is whether to turn direct touch on or off. Once I switched direct touch to "on", the keyboard seems to work as described!

Hope this helps someone else. I was quite confused for a while. I don't recall seeing in the documentation that direct touch had to be turned on.

--Pete

Must be on

Hello Rocco:
Once this is official, on the App Store, and bugs are worked out, I'll give it a try.

So Iʼm using the app to type this out so I can really get the feel for how it works. Iʼve been having a bit of trouble with it recognizing words outside of the app, but it is still in beta, so a few hiccups are to be expected.
The biggest problems I am having at the moment are with punctuation and spacing. When typing outside of the main app, it doesnʼt read when a period is inserted. It just said the last entered word twice, instead of period.
It is also sometimes hard to tell when a space is inserted during editing. I have had to switch back to the native keyboard a couple of times as I wrote th
is in order to fix the lack of space between words.
Adding new minds is also quite hit or miss. Most of the time, I find the gesture simply does not work and adds periods instead, meaning I must use manual mode. Haptics also donʼt seen to work outside the app. Iʼve got them on the low setting. But while typing right now I canʼt feel anything atall.
I think one of the main issuesis that itʼs very unclear if a space is added when swiping for a word suggestion. So I end upnot havingspaces in between words when I think I do.
Overal l I am very happythat this typing option exists for blind users again. Iʼm definitely. Faster using braille screen input, but Iʼm sure with practice and polishing this will be an invaluablek. Tool for many people..

This might be an option already, but if not, can we get aquick gesture to tell the keyboard “hey, I want you to capitalize the first letterof thisnextd word?”

I loved flexy and I loved flicktype. I never got to use them as much as I wanted to but I somehow, some way had a feeling that a dev was gunna pick this up again and this so happens to be the case. I'd like to join the beta if slots are not full. I'm not sure how many slots ya got available or what have ya But very much interested in giving this a go. PS, I could have sworn that flexie's code base was open sourced a while back or am I thinking of something else.

Have just.installed it onto my ipad pro. Its working fine with no issues, I can see myself using the ipad more now I have a way to type fast on it. Never been a fan of braille screen input on ipad, but this will make typing on it a hundred times better. Youʼre a legend for this

Hi Rocco. This is great news indeed, I'm delighted to have an app like this available again.
One weird issue I'm having is when tap typing a word that has punctuation, specifically an apostrophe. For example the word "you're", if I review the text, there seems to be a weird empty space where the apostrophe should be. This only happens with the keyboard extension, and not with the app.
A couple of times I've also found that I swipe right at the end of a word only to find it hasn't registered. I swipe right again and it inserts a period, but no sign of the word I typed.
When I swipe right and hold for a new line, sometimes instead of saying “new line”, it says “empty line” and appears to have entered two or three new lines or something, I’m not sure.
Overall pretty solid for a beta though, thanks.
Dave

Hi Rocco.
Great that you have been able to confirm the apostrophe bug.
The issue with words sometimes not registering has happened both in the app and using the extension in whatsapp.
The empty line thing has only happened so far in the app, although I haven't tried going to a new line in whatsapp or another app yet.
As for replies on AppleVis, we tried an implementation before but it didn’t work well. Never say never though.
Dave

There is a bug when swiping down with three fingers to dismiss the keyboard. The keyboard goes, but the text field is still being edited so there's no way to get the keyboard back. I've noticed this the most in the address field in the web browser so it's probably part of the bugs you talked about.

Rocco you are my hero! Like others I was hoping someone would some day take this on again - really missed the previous two apps and it was a real shame how the dev and Apple didn't get along and resolve things in the end(Although it got quite complicated and litigious I believe) Looking forward to testing this out! thank you so much 😎

When manually adding a word to the dictionary in the app, the wordis lower case even whenI specifically typed itwith a capital one.

I'd appreciate having a german layout, with that required would be a german dictionary I assume.

Wie Jonathan bereits erwähnt hat, wäre es toll, wenn es ein deutsches Layout gäbe.

Perhaps I'm missing this in the instructions somewhere, but it would be amazing to be able to swiftly switch back to the default iOS keyboard, either by gesture or by button. I adore this already, but sometimes I want to switch back to braille screen input for a particular task and the direct touch makes triggering this via gesture almost impossible since you need to tap one of your fingers where FloType is occupying the screen, so some sort of quick switch would be amazing if it can be managed.

As others have said, it's lovely to have something like this around again. I was a big user of Fleksy back in the day, and (though less so,) FlickType that came after. It has always struck me as a very fluid way to type and you have implemented it well. Already I can see it learning. Yesterday I had a choir concert so I was typing the words choir and rehearsal quite a lot, and while at first it got them wrong about 3/4 of the time, by the end of the day it was getting them first try almost without fail. This made for a very good, (if unintentional,) good trial, I suppose! All that to say thank you and I look forward to seeing where this goes!

Thank you! I thought that would close the keyboard but not switch it, but I should have checked more closely. Apologies and best wishes!

Hi Rocco.
A couple more issues found.
1. I have the quick keys strip disabled in settings, but it is still appearing there.
2. Text replacements are only working for me in the keyboard extension, but not in the main FloType app.
Dave

You could do the same thing as you did with keyboard clicks,and have multiple sound options for dismissing the keyboard. That way those who like the old sound can stilluse it, and those who don’t can pick a different one. Personally, I am indifferent. About it.

i’ve discovered another bug where smart punctuation isn’t working right. With quotation marks for example, it won’t do closing quotes. Only opening ones.

I’ve noticed that the keyboard doesn’t always like dismissing with the 3 finger swipe down? Is this just me, or anyone else having it? Sometimes it will go straight away, but other times it can take a good few attempts before it goes?

Ok, so I didn’t actually notice you could change the sounds for the actual clicks. But unless my ears are playing tricks on me, did I just fine the old iOS keyboard click sound in there? I’m usingit to type this, and I hope I’m not going mad? I’ll be switching back as I do prefer the newer iOS sounds, but wow, the nostalgia there hahaha