[0b0001]

If you were talking about yourself only, I'd agree. But since you name humanity, one thing must be very clear: most people don't like keyboards. That's something that holds in "the developed world". Outside of the ASCII-world, that might be even more so.

Smartphone keyboards with glide typing function very well for language (i.e., no passwords and no programming). They have an important feature: they provide the input you want, not exactly characters for the keypresses you did.

If you consider the Chinese language, many people use the input either by drawing (elderly people) or with Pinyin, a phonetics script. In both cases there's a lot of software involved to figure out what people want.

The point is: programmers are a tiny minority who need exactly the characters for the keys they presses. Most other people just need text in their native language.

Google wrote about reaching "the next billion users": https://www.blog.google/technology/next-billion-users/next-b...

[Semaphor]

> Smartphone keyboards with glide typing function very well for language (i.e., no passwords and no programming). They have an important feature: they provide the input you want, not exactly characters for the keypresses you did.

If only. Because when people write nonsensical sentences and you ask what’s going on, the reply is usually "sorry, on mobile".

[goodcanadian]

Indeed, I have been caught out so many times with the word I want initially appearing on screen, and then auto-"corrected" to something else when I input the next word and I am no longer looking.

[ptspts]

First thing I do is disabling autocorrect. It introduces more errors than it fixes. Also it's changing a correct word in language A to another correct word in language B. But I need the language A word.

[jgtrosh]

Not claiming it's foolproof, but after years of using GBoard, the multilingual keyboard mode now feels like it corrects far more than it corrupts. Or maybe I'm just too accustomed to it.

On the other hand you will never get my proper keyboard for work away from me.

[0b0001]

Have you tried using the Google Keyboard on Android recently? It will distinguish between several languages.

[ChrisRR]

I'm going to want a source on this claim.

While mobile keyboards are "alright" for messaging where you can get away with errors, they're not the kind of thing you want to be using for prolonged periods, ie. writing documents or long emails. They're slow, error prone, and tiring because of the unnatural thumb movements.

For any significant amount of typing and where accuracy is needed (a single letter wrong is more understandable than being replace with a similar dictionary word), keyboards are still preferred.

[0b0001]

Have a look at the Google article. I presume they do some research when claiming that keyboards aren't what a significant portion of humankind needs.

But indeed not only programmers rely on keyboards.

[JohnFen]

> Smartphone keyboards with glide typing function very well for language

I have literally never been able to make those work acceptably well.