Typewise Custom Keyboard Reviews

To me it doesn’t feel fast at all. The hexagonal shape is just so weird and doesn’t feel natural at all and I’ve been using it for about a day. Yes, it says that it takes a week, but I consider myself a very quick learner and I know myself better than anyone, I usually pick up on things very quickly. But I just can’t get into this keyboard. To me personally, it’s not fun, it feels odd and the autocorrect is so bad. The devs commented on another review about a year ago saying they’re working on a major update, but from what other reviews have said, it seems like that “major update” hasn’t hit yet... which is a shame since a year is a long time. Overall, not my keyboard.

The keyboard doesn't come up except in the Typewise app. I have an iPhone 13 Pro, my iOS is up to date, and everything is enabled in keyboard settings, but I don't have the option to change to the Typewise keyboard even though it's there on my list of enabled keyboards in the settings app. It just doesn't show up when I press the globe key. Every so often it pops up randomly in a handful of native iOS apps, but does not seem to exist at all anywhere else, including on the home screen.

I did get to experiment with it in TypewiseCustomKeyboard , and even there it was buggy. I selected the Day & Night theme, and it started on the Day setting even though I had dark mode turned on. It never changed to Night even though I toggled dark mode on and off several times. I also got stuck in the tutorial on the slide where it shows you how to delete/redo a line of characters at once. Apparently just following the steps shown isn't enough to go to the next screen, you have to follow the steps shown with absolutely perfect timing, or nothing happens. Ridiculous.

Tucking four symbols used at various frequencies each with different gestures is a weird anti-pattern for simplicity. Vibration as a premium feature is a bummer and to me the only thing premium is worth. The TW logo to the left of the smart bar is not good at all and the premium undo feature is not a suitable substitute. Turning off the smart bar locks you out of being able to undo autocorrect. Words like i'm don't get capitalized and contractions like cant don't get an automatic apostrophe but the word "don't" does. The word i never gets autocapitalized. The word autocorrect, a word used multiple times inside the configuring interface, gets autocorrected to "a incorrect". The word autocorrected gets converted to "a uncorrected". There is only so much more customizability this needs in order to be perfect, and the allure of bigger, harder to mistype keys is not worth the compromises. How do i close this keyboard even?

Edit as a response to the developer:
I just want the logo to be a little bit smaller. It’s huge. And tapping above the screen doesn’t work sometimes like even editing this review. I still have major problems with the symbols layout and the lack of customizabilty. I still feel as if even after only the changes you’ve mentioned the premium price of the pro features still can’t justify the main selling point - bigger and harder to mistake buttons.

To many useless features and no back button. The Porsche 911 under went decades incremental refinements, not explosive changes. You tech geeks do things like Tesla did to the steering wheel of the Plaid model S when they thought it would be better to have an airplain yoke on a private jet or a Formula 1 car rather than a better round wheel. Focusing on useful ideas like sound deadening would be better. I like outside the box thinking like the hex shaped keys for better fat finger touch accuracy but rearranging them with no qwerty option was dumb. And of coarse the spell check interface with apples awful ai that either doesnt recognize or replaces common real words of the websters or cambridge dictionaries is pretty lame let alone no easy way to tag a word to put into your private spelling list, but that is an apple problem as is the touch and hold magnifier bubble that was so useful until some numb nuts eliminated it after ios 12.5 and then brought back an inferior version in 15.3.

I like the keyboard layout with bigger space bar and no backspace etc. Tried the beehive style but don't have patience to learn it; would take a good day or two of serious practice.
Bought the premium trial hoping word suggestions would improve but it didn't. It's very poor. Especially compared to SwiftKey and apple keyboards so canceled and went back to SwiftKey.
I so wish someone would develop a smart keyboard that lewrn where you type then adjusts. For example, most people don't hit the space bar correctly and type "b" instead. A smart keyboard would lewrn this and adjust and basically, create a custom keyboard layout.
HTC had this 20 years ago. Why can't anyone just resurrect this?!

I like the layout and don't really mind the learning curve. But $25 for a keyboard? I would gladly pay $5 tops, but five times that is WAY over priced. You can get the free version which isn't bad to try it out, but most of the good features are in the pro version. It could be a popular keyboard but developers are a little greedy in my opinion.

Update/Response to developer: The main feature that was locked behind a pay wall in my opinion was the ability to have multiple languages. As a bilingual speaker that is a feature that is pretty essential, and it's the only reason I'm sticking to the built-in apple keyboard.

I don't want to take the time to learn this companies version of a keyboard layout. Just leave The stupid keyboard the way it has been for a very long time. You can make the keys bigger the way you’ve designed it and still leave the layout. But no they have to be unique. So guess what keyboard I’m not typing with. Also I hate when companies lower UN and once it’s installed that’s when they tell you that really to be able to use TypewiseCustomKeyboard you have to pay money. If you’re going to be in the business in charge money then charge money. If that means you don’t get as much business but that’s the business.

I really do love the keyboard typewise provides here its far more suited to a touchscreen than a traditional keyboard although it does come with a bit of a learning curve. However i do have one major gripe that is making me consider switching back, and that is the pro features. Its not that i have problem with typewise having in app purchases, its that typewise advertises them ON THE KEYBOARD through word suggestions that when you tap them it gives you a popup ad about the pro version of the keyboard which becomes super frustrating after a while especially since a feature like word suggestions are entirely free everywhere else. It is annoying that typewise would put a paywall between us and such a basic and essential feature, and then throw it in our face by advertising it right on the keyboard through popups you have to click out of.

I tried this for more than the week the dev said would take to get used to it. Never did. Yes I did the tutorials. Not only that, but I don’t think I should have to pay for suggested words. The Dev responds that they don’t sell ads. I never said they did. But. “Pro features” is silly and feels chintzy on behalf of the devs offering a keyboard. Suggested words are already standard on my phone. I think the best feature is being able to scroll back to erase but then forward to reveal text you want to edit. Otherwise, this wasn’t worth the trouble to continue to attempt to adapt to. The honeycomb layout has too many letters that are oddly placed, resulting in typos that one must correct. Definitely didn’t save time, which was a selling point.

Its so cool to have a new keyboard style, who would dare venture outside of qwerty? I love the concept, but the placements of the keys have me reaching further up and down then ever, now i have 5 rows of letters. I find it harder to hop up and down (as you will need to do with TypewiseCustomKeyboard) then left and right. Also, the number keys are never going to be used in such an awkward format? Why add the 4 at the end of the row after 123? It’s a totally unnecessary pattern change, kind of like revising the English language from the word “yes” to “yeshk”. But this is where the fun part is of the whole Typewise language, making typing a new thing like driving stick shift for the first time. The K definitely needs to be swapped with the L! Haptic feed back is a little generic as well, where as using the phones native keyboard, there’s a beautiful tapping vibration, here, the vibration is too long. The range in adjusting the strength is wayyyy to large. Just light, med, and strong would do I think.

I use this for fun and support for adventurers like Typewise! But in a serious conversation or business email, QWERTY is king. They should have a race from a fast texter vs a fast Typewiser. That would be the showcase of this product. BATTLE ROYALE!

It has a lot of potential - but six things keep it from being my daily.

1) The autocorrect is fantastically bad and will change even common English words with no regard to the context of the word.

2) In English, the letter I is almost always capitalized in standalone usage. The keyboard will not autocorrect this and I cannot even set it as a custom replacement.

3) The keyboard refuses to auto-punctuate contractions and they, too, cannot even be customized as a text replacement.

5) No caps lock that I have found for when I need to write initializations and acronyms.

6) You cannot just backspace to the end of the previous word to restore it to your original if it gets autocorrected like you can on the iOS keyboard. That means you have to either reposition the cursor or retype the word. And, the keyboard shouldn’t keep autocorrecting once a word has been corrected manually. I tried five times to correct a word before I gave up because it wouldn’t hold my spelling.

I’m gonna keep my annual subscription because this does have great promise and you can’t fund improvements otherwise.

The spacing of the keyboard is nice! But, the word prediction is poor, has very little vocabulary. And, when it does predict a usable word, you have to punch that word 2-3 times to actually get it to enter your message. That could be the fault of the iphone 12 ios, dunno. The text prediction also doesn't remember noncommon words that I use frequently. Other keyboard s I have used were better at that. As well, when the text prediction suggests a word that is close to what you need, it is the wrong form of the word, wrong tense , etc, to grammatically fit the sentence I have started.

At the moment, the native slide-typing of an iPhone is less error-prone than typing with typewise. I find typewise keeps autocorrecting things to the wrong words, sometimes even after I've specifically selected the right one. It also likes to change two words into one separated by a "l" instead of a space, and I know it is automatically changing it because it leaves megan option to change itlback.

I wish I could use typewise's keyboard with the iPhone's native predictor that it uses for slide-typing.

I like this a lot, ironically I’m not typing this with it though. It is very good however the adjustment period for the hexagon layout I love is still with me. My only complaints are the autocorrect features that are a bit wonky at times and the placement of certain keys (although the last one is still probably just me not being used to it) but otherwise it is very good and I like it. I just feel autocorrect could use a bit of fine tuning

I have only had this for a few minutes but i really like it. I am noticing far less typos involving hitting the wrong key. I think it would improve TypewiseCustomKeyboard to have the option to customize what letter are where, but i like how the special characters and backspace is set up. I do think that this key board will have a learning curve, but that it will be worth it.

Would it be possible for you guys to add the apostrophes to the auto correct? In example where if I type ive it'll replace it with i’ve automatically. This would really speed up typing in the honeycomb keyboard so we don't have to long swipe everytime. Even if this review there are words that take extra time long swiping. All in all I love the keyboard. Auto correct just need some attention! Good work going on at Typewise.

I love this keyboard. It’s the only one I’ve seen that actually is faster than a traditional Keyboard. I hope that continued development refines it further to address issues like auto-punctuation-spacing and word suggestion for spelling correction. As it is, I enjoy it immensely!
Typing error correction is so much more efficient. No more banging on the backspace key, easier access to special characters are wonderful features.
The lifetime payment option is very reasonable and a long awaited, commonsense, welcome option from ForeverPay subscriptions while still offering that option as well.
Great to see innovative thinking all throughout.

I purchased the pro version. It was the best upgrade to my iphone that I've done. Stock iphone keyboard is way too small. Typewise has two keyboard formats (traditional and hexagonal). I use the traditional, with large letters and a nice colored theme. So, I'm able to type more efficiently with a pleasant eyesight. There are many options to customize the typing experience. I definitely recommend. But please add an option to search for specific emojis 🙏🏻

Productivity is the most important thing to me! This keyboard style is amazing but the lack of being able to move the cursor with the space (a feature in the stock iOS keyboard) makes me less productive when writing long notes. I'm hoping the developers see this and maybe consider adding a longpress on the space buttons to control the cursor or a different spacebar implementation altogether

5/5

Before you give it a bad review, make sure you testrun this keyboard for a few weeks. It was definitely hard getting used to it but after using it for a few weeks i am used tomitmand it has reall improved how well i can text on my phone. I ended up buying the lifetime membership. Well worth it!

**I need a plain old backspace key!!!! I could accept all the other problems if it just had a decent backspace key!!! At least give me the option!!!** I like your concept, but I really just want a plain old keyboard with better prediction and better finger following. And a real backspace key for goodness sakes!!! Cancelling and uninstalling.

Down loaded this and it introduced hacker who tried to get into my Apple a count then sent me a apple phishing site that said my Apple account had been locked!!
I called Apple and the said my account was fine and to send the email to Apple!!
Do not install!!!!!

Glad i didnt get the $24 version Constantly have to switch to the Original iphone keyboard because there is no shift or backspace. Also can’t get rid of the words that appear on top of the keyboard. Original iphone keyboard allows for that to be disabled.

Even after doing the tutorial, I am still struggling to use it. I can’t even type a complete sentence because there is no way to capitalize someone’s name. I am switching back to the stock keyboard.

I put it as last priority on the keyboard list yet it still is not allowing my iphone keyboard to show up except for facebook.

Cant toggle to normal keyboard. Doesn't understand most contractions either especially ive

There is no button i see that allows me to use the voice command

Very difficult to manage the delete function

The spell check overrides 75% of the already correct words and misses thesame amount of misspellings

Gave 2stars because i love the number keypad. Toobad the rest ducks so hard. See what i mean?

Enjoying it so far, but I 100% agree with the other reviewer that there should at least be an option for a backspace key, even if it replaces of one of the space bars. Whether or not the swiping works (as opposed to just moving the text bar around,) seems totally random. Then, when it finally works it erases too much text. I know you're just going to blame me for not figuring it out or whatever, but you have two different functions controlled by swiping. Come on now.

They hide good features behind a subscription and the lack of a delete button is annoying

Just add Arabic, thx.

When will you support the Arabic language?

It is now so much easier to type the correct keys. You should add a caps lock button.

I'm getting use to this keyword and really loving it! It's getting much easier to use, and the big buttons make a difference. It would be helpful if I could see the letters as I type, but overall its a good change.

I love it so far, it feels a lot better to type with, but I do think that there could be a backspace button in addition to the swipe thing. The swipe thing is nice but can be a bit tedious when you’re typing fast.

O know how to te inCredibly well on a keyboard but could never type decently enough on any iphone due to the mediocre keyboard layout. Lo and behold this is what i have been looking for in a keyboard apo. I have always envied droid keyboard apps cuz they are amazingly good. My wife hasba droid and i could type sonwell on herbphone as if i was on a keyboard . I finally have something to keep me typing happyly om my iphone. Thank you!

May not keep because of the subscription. Don’t want that. I’ll have 30 days to try before making this decision.