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by BosunoB 39 days ago
I don't really get swiping. It's always going to be quicker and more efficient to type because you can use both hands, right? And you don't have to swipe your finger across the screen?

Still going strong with Fleksy even though you can't even download it anymore.

5 comments

Sometimes you have one hand full. When my kids were small, especially, I REALLY benefited from swipe typing. I still often use it when I am holding something in one hand.
Maybe for you personally, but in a general sense I don't see how you can hold a phone and "use both hands" to type individual keys.

One notable advantage of swiping is that you can be quite loose with each single swipe gesture whereas you have to hit the right key many times for each word. That swipe is also usually much quicker than finding multiple keys for most people.

You preferences may reflect youth, eyesight, finger size, co-ordination, phone case usage or other advantages most people don't have.

I think it more likely reflects using bigger phones, where swiping across a while keyboard is quite slow, but also, I hate typing with two hands with any other app than Fleksy. You just have to hit within the general area of the key and it counts. I haven't had that kind of success with any other keyboard I've tried.
It traces back to accessibility. Think of folks with shaky hands. The screen helps to stabilize the tremors. A similar thing applies to typing on a bumpy bus or while walking.

That said, it also depends on screen size. Back when Swype first became popular, Android screen sizes ranged from 3-5". That was another factor driving it's popularity back in the day.

Definitely not for everyone or in every situation though

Swiping with one finger is faster than typing with two in my experience. But you can have best of both worlds, my keyboard let's me swipe with two fingers at the same time (heliboard on f-droid)
The thing is, with Fleksy, as long as you get within a few characters of the letter, it counts, and you also switch auto-correct choices by swiping up or swiping down, so you can fix them easily. It's a joy to type with 2 hands, honestly.
If you have long nails then two thumbs on a tiny phone keyboard are pretty much impossible.