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wfoster

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 16, 2009
696
38
Plymouth, UK
Struggling to get to grips with the Google Keyboard on the S4.

I use a iPhone 5s daily and find it hard typing on my S4 a lot.
 

pedromcm.pm

macrumors 6502
Mar 23, 2014
483
0
Porto, Portugal
SwiftKey makes tiping on my ****** s3 mini a pleasant experience.

In fact, SwiftKey alone shows one of the few advantages that Android users have against iOS users.

It's not about the design or speed itself... It's the prediction and the ability to change languages automatically as you write. Amazing app.
 

khha4113

macrumors regular
Oct 12, 2013
202
11
You can swipe with Google keyboard as same function as Swiftkey or Swype. Even Samsung keyboard has that function too.
 

Stuntman06

macrumors 6502a
Sep 19, 2011
961
5
Metro Vancouver, B.C, Canada
Here's my assessment of Android keyboards I have tried:

SwiftKey -- Best auto-correct and text prediction I have tried. I used it for months, but stopped because I didn't really like the landscape keyboard layouts.

Swype -- Best gesture typing keyboard. Great for one-handed typing. My current portrait keyboard.

Kii -- My favourite landscape keyboard because it has a landscape layout I really like over and above any others. Unlike other keyboard, it actually has a Canadian English langauge setting. Auto-correct and text prediction are OK. My current landscape keyboard.

Thumb -- This keyboard has many different layouts. It has a wider selection of keyboard layouts for landscape and portrait orientation than any other one I've used. I used it for a while because of the different layouts and before I discovered SwiftKey and eventually Swype and Kii.

Google Keyboard -- It's free. Not quite as good as Swype for gesture typing. I used this for a while and found it to be almost as good as Swype.

MessagEase -- Near error free typing without needing auto-correct, if you are proficient with it. Non-QWERTY layout and typing method. This keyboard has only 16 big buttons for all letters and symbols. How? It uses either a tap or a directional swipe in a cardinal or diagonal direction for each character. This allows 16x9 = 144 different characters. When typing on this, if you want to type a particular letter, you are almost always guaranteed to make no mistake. The catch and it is huge is that there is a huge learning curve. I tried it for a few days and didn't feel like putting in more time to get proficient in typing with this keyboard. If you have the patience or are just really sick of miskeying using a traditional QWERTY layout, give this a try.
 

Switchback666

macrumors 68000
Nov 16, 2012
1,600
67
SXM
Google keyboard would be awesome if it change/recognize languages automatically like Swiftkey does; my Swiftkey trial is almost over so I'm giving Google keyboard couple of days to see if I can make it work if not I will just pay for Swiftkey.
 

MRU

macrumors Penryn
Aug 23, 2005
25,370
8,952
a better place
Sense 6 Keyboard has surprised me, it's very good. Normally I too prefer Stock Google Keyboard. Note 3's keyboard worked well too for the device, more so than on the smaller sized S4
 

Oohara

macrumors 68040
Jun 28, 2012
3,050
2,423
Swype.

This works best for alternating between two languages. I have tried (paid versions) of all the other major keyboards but they couldn't handle this nearly as well.

I also love the very intuitive commands for Copy/Paste/highligh All which are built into this keyboard - just swipe from the Swype symbol (lower left) to C, V or A. This is incredibly handy and something I just can't live without now, it works much faster for me than relying on the usual Android symbols. You can also swipe from the symbol to backspace to hide the keyboard, also very handy.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1723341/
 
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