[yathern]

Awesome research! I was just thinking the other day, about how a qwerty layout for T9 might have been easier and more efficient. Cool to see something even better. A little off-topic, but this 6-button keyboard format looks perfect for my dream device.

I take a lot of walks. I often listen to an audio book while I do so. I also frequently get texts, or hear something in the book I may want to write down.

I've always wanted to be able to handle these situations without taking out my phone, but rather clicking buttons in my pockets. For example, I get a text while listening to music. Click a button to hear it read out. Type out my response. Send it. Open notes, write a reminder to buy bread. One-handed, blindly, while on a walk outside. No voice recognition - no "OK Google" nonsense.

I've considered getting a Twiddler - but they're expensive, and I don't think I can easily configure it to do these things - particularly browsing and responding to messages - or opening up a new note, while listening to an audiobook.

Does anyone know some combination of software and hardware that can do some of this for me?

[crashocaster]

I’d suggest to revisit voice recognition — it works quite well for me in the same usecase.

I also like to take walks, sometimes listening to podcasts. The stock iOS voice recognition (the microphone button on the keyboard, not Siri) is quite good, I usually just talk into the phone without looking at the output. After the walk, I format and clean up the notes to fix any errors.

[yathern]

That's fair - I live in a bustling city and get self conscious with people being able to hear me text and such. I know it's really effective these days though.

[egypturnash]

I used to be able to write stuff blind pretty reliably back when I was using a Palm device. Its “Graffiti” system was pretty good. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti_(Palm_OS) A keyboard based on it could go a long way.

[ulrikrasmussen]

I remember back when I could ride a bike while texting and still watch the road. T9 was the high point of text input on handheld devices!

[5-]

what you describe sounds a bit like https://www.tapwithus.com/ -- but i have never used it and i suspect it's more of a novelty than a genuine utility.