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by defluct 1344 days ago
But not Colemak. macOS has supported both Colemak and Dvorak, and I find it infuriating that they not only haven't supported it on iOS yet, but even more infuriating that they only added Dvorak.

I can only be thankful that Colemak is supported on external keyboards on iPadOS, even though the virtual keyboard doesn't support it.

4 comments

I used to use Colemak on Android before I switched to iOS. As nice as layout parity was in principle, it was noticeably unfit for swipe typing. Too many words just ping-ponged along the home row.
I used Dvorak on Android, before switching to iOS. Same problem, of course. It was nearly unusable with swipe (my now preferred input). It made me realize how badly a swipe optimized keyboard is needed.
Colemak wouldn't be as useful for thumb typing or swipe typing as QWERTY.

The hardware keyboard support is adequate for my needs (on iOS too, it's handy to fold open a Bluetooth keyboard to use with your phone) and I've never seen a need for Colemak in the software keyboards. I can't properly touch type on an iPad even if it supported Colemak because there's no "touch" there and I wouldn't want to accidentally ruin my touch typing skills with a "watch the keyboard" fake touch typing device. Easy enough to just have Bluetooth hardware keyboards handy. The iPad even has nice ones that attach by magnets and act as covers so they are always around.

For what it's worth, SwiftKey on Android supports Colemak and Dvorak, so I presume the iOS versions do as well. It's not the stock keyboard, but it's not bad either.
SwiftKey for iOS was just discontinued.
Why do you want Colemak on your phone? I switched to Colemak for my physical keyboard years ago, and didn't keep up my QWERTY skills, so I'm fairly crippled typing on a QWERTY keyboard; but I have trouble typing on my phone with my thumbs.

Presumably people like us are exactly why it's included on external keyboards for iPadOS.

I too use Colemak for physical keyboards and Qwerty for soft keyboards.

It is nice to have the consistency available. Though, I don't really have a need for it. Only case I can thing of is typing a few, key memorized passwords. I don't really remember the actual password, just the motions. Kind of a pain to motion it out and translate it to qwerty.