Fleksy- GIF, Web & Yelp Search

Never mind, I saw Alex's comment after I posted.

if you read all the mainstream tech sites they are all saying positive things about the update, and as long as that's the case fleksy won't care about us I highly doubt ioaness is going to come up on hear in a few hours to respond because he knows we are speaking the truth.
I guess we didn't know when we were lucky and we had fleksy vo, I guess to some extent we created a rod for our own back when people began complaining about being divided, I wish I had kept earlier versions of fleksy around from before they implemented the sdk.
I bet one thing is for sure if Johnathan mosen asked fleksy to do another interview they probably wouldn't because basically they have broken most of there word OK yes you can type with the app but the fleksy app itself is far from easy and pleasant to use and the keyboard gives considerably fewer suggestions than in the old days.
about fleksy and android I don't know if this is still the case but I know a while back it couldn't be used with talkback on android because talkback didn't have something fleksy needed of course this might have changed I don't know, but I would be willing to bet even if it has issues will probably be the same across the board.

just for people who might be interested I am pasting below my email to fleksy regarding my concerns I sent them back in November and there very brief response,
my email is first followed buy there reply its fairly long so people might want to sit down with the popcorn lol,

this was written before the release of 5.0 and contains most of the issues I found though a few I did forget to mention in the email and a few have come up since then that I found.
my original message begins now
subject: concerns regarding fleksy development
On November 29, 2014 at 1:10 PM Alex Wallis <
alexwallis646@googlemail.com>
wrote:

Dear Bill and fleksy development team,
I am writing regarding concerns that I have had for some time now with
fleksy development and the progress or lack there of with accessibility
for VoiceOver users.

I have submitted feedback privately to this email address and publicly
to the newly established facebook group but nothing appears to have been
done regarding this, in fact so far as I know I haven't scene any
responses on the group from the development team to my or anyone's comments.

My concerns are as follows,
the interface of the fleksy app itself needs a lot of work doing to it
to improve VoiceOver navigation,
the themes list clutters up the screen and in fact it isn't possible to
just flick through all the themes you can navigate a few but then you
have to hunt around for the next row to navigate through in my view it
should be possible to hide this list as it takes up space on the screen,
next, you can't flick through the buttons to allow you to adjust the
size of the keyboard, large, small normal etc, you can focus on one
button but then can't flick from that element to the next element.
The minimal button is very difficult to find and there is no indication
from VoiceOver when this has been activated.

Next it isn't obvious at all that you have to go into settings and
enable full access for fleksy to work properly with VoiceOver, I really
think that if you detect VoiceOver is running some kind of helpful
message should pop up on the screen when the app is launched explaining
this and how to achieve best results with VoiceOver.

I also find the settings inside fleksy difficult to navigate, sometimes
tabs don't respond to being tapped and the settings button can be hard
to find, its also hard to close settings when you have finished making
changes.

The next big problem I have with fleksy is the sounds I am not hard of
hearing but for me the current sounds are practically inaudible, I don't
see why as you offer a range of themes to sighted users you couldn't
offer a range of sound packs for blind users, one of which you could
call fleksy classic for example, other packs you could try offering
could be sounds of a computer keyboard, a typeewriter or a Braille machine.

At the moment I have no confidence when I try to type with fleksy due to
not being able to hear the sounds, and also because there is no definite
sound when you have finished deleting text or message saying no more
text to delete like there was in the good old days of fleksy before you
began catering to a wider audience.

My biggest problem with fleksy though is my accuracy is just dreadful,
with fleksy it used to be that I got typing speeds equal to a bluetooth
keyboard baring in mind I am a touch typist now I am lucky if I even get
proper words from fleksy I mean before you began catering mostly for
your sighted users I always got a word when typing with fleksy OK yes it
might not have been anything like what I intended but at least it was a
real word, now it seems two easy to make fleksy produce rubbish.
I have mentioned several times on facebook about my accuracy having
sharply deteriorated and I would hope that this should have been of
great concern but no comment on this either.

In fact my accuracy is so poor I test fleksy betas for a few minutes
then delete them because I can't actually find the quick button on the
screen to let me change back to the ios keyboard.
for me fleksy used to be a really great productivity tool but sadly no
longer.
I also find that fleksy now only gives me two or three word suggestions
at best, before it used to give me ten, two or three is simply not good
enough for me to be productive.

Now if someone said to me they wanted to type faster on there iPhone I
would recommend them to go out and spend money on a bluetooth keyboard,
whereas before my first recommendation would have been fleksy.

I have given much of this feedback before several times and have now
experienced a few betas with you and all they seem to mostly do is tweak
one or two VoiceOver fixes with the majority of work concentrating on
improving things for sighted users, I mean one mention of VoiceOver in
the last changelog but buy contrast 6 new themes for sighted users? I
mean how long did 6 themes take to put together?

also I am certainly not the only one who has left some of this
feedback,, others have commented on sounds and wanting to hide themes
but it doesn't feel like any of this is being listened to,
I think really you need to sit down and have a proper accessibility
review as at the moment it does feel like things are hardly progressing
in this area at all.

I would very much like to help improve fleksy that's why I have joined
the beta program, why I have joined the facebook group and why I am
writing this email to you.
But as it currently stands I find fleksy such a difficult product to use
and not good for productivity I am actually questioning if its worth me
staying in the beta program at all especially if it doesn't feel like I
am being listened to.

I really would like to help improve things though and hope fleksy can
get back to where it was before, I mean in applevis your listed as
having accessibility issues, surely that must be important for you.

I look forward to hearing from you,
Alex.

below this is the reply from fleksy,
I won't say anything but read it and draw your own conclusions people
We appreciate your feedback.

More improvements with Fleksy and VoiceOver are on the way.

Regards,
Dimitris Verdelis
Chief Community Manager

starting with droid, it is doable. however, you must turn off talkback kind of like how it was on IOS on earlier versions of IOS 8. there is a voice feedback that you can turn on in the settings so you aren't completely left out in the cold as it was put earlier in the thread. but its not the best solution. Fleksi blames the reason for the way this is because talkback just doesn't support an accessible solution. While i definitely understand in a few aspects talkback doesn't stand up to say voiceover, but for the most part its very comprable and in other much better. but droid vs. IOS debates aside, in interviews with fleksi has shown their blatant lack of knowledge of talkback and how it works at the basic level with an onscreen keyboard. they may have rectified the situation since then but, i remain skeptical. they did a while ago ask for talkback users in and around California to get in contact with them for some beta testing but, nothing has come out of that in over 6 months. so in conclusion, if you can deal with suspending talkback while using Fleksi, more power to you. i know many droid users who love it.

moving back to IOS, the app is problematic and needs lots of exploring to get it all. furthermore, the way to switch back to the stock IOS keyboard is also a fickle prospect and i still have not found a good solution that works 100% of the time. also anyone noticed that it seems you can't flick around the screen when the Fleksi keyboard is up? i find it usually happens with twitter mostly. can anyone confirm this?

Ok let me join the fleksy keyboard haters group now. I was actually, very patiently awaiting for updates on and on and on with a hope that they will be giving us accessible keyboard like fleksy vo. But I failed and I've lost my patiency as well.

Now, I have come to a conclusion as they are not even ready to hear our difficulties with the new updates. I've even tried asking them via twitter but no response. So I'm awaiting for some other will creat an app for us with full accessibility.

I thought only in India, they ignore the accessibility point of view. And now, they have proved that it's also in US.

Raaj

I'm sorry, but this is totally, utterly unacceptable.
When I joined fleksy first beta team back in... uh. was it 2012, I was so happy. My typing speed had increased several times and it all went like a breeze. Soon they went public, and others thought so too. Yes, let me remind you, that we, the blind community were the main and first target group of Fleksy. They got lots of feedback, made many great improvements. Many big media companies recognized them and wrote good articles about how fleksy revolutionised the way blind people can type on smartphones. And at this point, when the word of the app was out there, they litterally turned their backs to us, and started working on the much bigger market, who promised more. I know it sounds like a total drama, but thats what it looks to me right now. The app and the iOs keyboard is inaccessible. Totally. And no, toggling voiceOver on and off isn't a solution. Today I downloaded the app again to test newly added Estonian support, because I do a lot of typing on my phone and fleksy would help me a lot. And finding the app still being completely inaccessible, but visually very nice, colourful and happy, I am very, very annoyed. I am even more angry now when I have read the fleksys one line response to a very long, well written and informative user feedback posted here earlier today. Thats just rude.
Sorry for my outburst, but doing so, is not nice and acceptable when you are an app developer.
My 1 star review got submitted to appstore today, because the app, which once was very great, is now totally useless.

I think we should cut the Fleksy folks a little slack here. Making the transition from a dedicated app to a integrated keyboard in iOS 8 was probably a big transition for the developer. Not to mention that iOS 8 itself still contains manya number of bugs or impediments to making this app work more smoothly. For example, apple doesn't allow the "Dictation" feature in third party keyboards, flicking through fields of a mail note doesn't work with third party apps as it does with the default Apple keyboard, etc.

Personally, although I don't rely on Fleksy 100% of the time, I do find it more useable than many others here are indicating. yes, I have gotten into some modes where everything I type seems to be gibberish. then the next version comes out and I can type reasonably well, make word selections, etc. I think part of the issue may be the size of the keyboard relative to what I had used before and I am finding that I have to perhaps be a bit more accurate in terms of being not very far away from the intended letters.

No, this isn't perfect, but yes, it is useable for some tasks. yes, I hope it can be improved, but let's let these folks make a bit of money first so that they'll at least be around in 6 months or a year so that they will have the time and resources to improve the VoiceOver experience.

I think we should be a bit more patient. I also find that, as I said, some practice in learning the keyboard layout helps.

--Pete

Pete: I am in agreement with you on many aspects. I agree that the app is somewhat useable. WhenI am doing plain typing without needing to capitalize certain words, use certain punctuation, or add emoticons, Fleksy is fine. When I need to use word suggestions, however, or minimize the keyboard, or, like I said,custom capitalize words, Fleksy is not fine. However, these things I can forgive. What I cannot forgive is the fact that the Fleksy team has basically gone silent on this forum that helped them get started. They do not post accessibility updates as they once did to this forum. Perhaps they are rather irritated by the negativity that has been around since the release of iOS8 on this topic? Who knows! They may, and I stress may, occasionally throw in the word Voiceover in an app update description, but that is it. I agree with giving them more time to iron out bugs, accessible or otherwise, but when I see them rolling out new feature after new feature with, if you'll pardon the crudity, a half-assed attempt at fixing known problems, thenI think it is less about having an excellent product out there for all consumers rather than what bells and whistles they can throw into an app to make it bring in more money. I'm not against giving them money. I, like many others on this site, paid for Fleksy when it first came out. Do I regret that? Not a bit. Would I pay for Fleksy today? Not a chance. While I am not giving up on Fleksy yet, and while I am not going to go out and start kicking and screaming and complaining about how the blind community is basically being shunted aside, I do feel that this is, sadly, the case. At this point, I can only hope that we will all be pleasantly surprised and that #Fleksy will give us reason to eat our recriminations. Have a good one.

I was an early adopter of Fleksy, and was very excited when it became an option to integrate into iOS 8. However, the amount of time I spend attempting to get it to accurately predict what I mean is often a hindrance to my productivity. At this stage, I actually find setting my typing mode to direct touch typing to be more efficient. That doesn't mean I'll ditch Fleksy entirely, as I do want to give each new update a fair shake. It's just not the best solution for my needs at present.

I would be more charitable toward the Fleksy developers except that when Fleksy VO was released -- and for the blind, this was, in my view, about as good as it could get barring a couple minor bugs -- the developers promised that they would always support this version of the app. To me, a promise is a promise is a promise. As soon as the developers abandoned fleksy VO, they lost all my respect and I consider that they've given the blind (their initial enthusiastic supporters, of which I was one) the shaft. forget the debates about whether or not apps for the blind alone are or are not philosophically wise. The fleksy people made me a promise -- one that has been broken.

Remember, though, that I've *always* thought integration of third-party keyboards into iOS wasn't worth the hassle I predicted it would be.

Oh well. at this point, we're all just flapping our figurative gums.

I am all in favour of giving them time to work,
However as people have stated above the developers have gone silent on this forum, they haven't responded on twitter either.
What is even worse is though they haven't engaged at all with the facebook group as far as I know, to me surely that's something that that needs to happen.
The fact is that to make the actual fleksy app itself not the keyboard but the app accessible and easy to use they are going to need to do a lot of UI work and they haven't even stated this is being considered or really responded to any of my feedback with any substance apart from a vague one line response. The keyboard of course also needs work as well.
I think its a case of either very poor communication or they have left us behind and moved on to brighter and better things.
I wonder if it might be worth some of us contacting the main tech sites who were initially positive about fleksy and making them aware of how we are being sidelined or at least how they are not responding to beta feedback.
I wonder if they would respond quickly if a few negative stories were published, I am not saying this as a threat or anything just suggesting it as a way forward.
Maybe we could write to the sites explaining how we feel actually put something together in our own words for them to publish if they were interested so that they get the facts right.
Maybe initially we could approach the sites explain there are problems and offer to write them an article if they said they wanted to know more, obviously there is no point going into huge detail in an initial approach unless they say they are interested.
Maybe if several of us feel this is a good idea we could collaborate on an article if we can find a site interested in hearing from us.
What do people think about this idea? and if people think its a good idea any thoughts as to what sites we should approach?

Most noticably, as the notes state, we now have the ability to enter manual letters with this update to the app and for those who use Voiceover on our iPhone's

I would like to take this opportunity to extend my thanks and appreciation to the Fleksy team whom I'm sure worked very hard to make this happen in this update. For me, this makes it all the more easier to type text messages and I can only say that as the months progress into the new year, that the Fleksy keyboard continues to grow in ability of the prediction engine and the accessibility continues to stride forward, as of when it is needed to do so.

It would be interesting to know what others think.

Here are the release notes below:

*Note: Please update to the latest version of iOS 8 to fix key known issues with custom keyboards and improve your Fleksy experience. INTRODUCING - Many more themes, including branded themes! - Keyboard Extensions! Drag and drop extension cards to add or remove the features you enjoy! 5 Extensions at launch including: - GIF Keyboard - Numbers Row - One-handed Mode - Cursor Control - Rainbow Pops - New emoji scroll mode for finding emoji faster and easier - Long-press period for quick punctuation/symbols (.,?!@#) - New long-press key animations - Single-character input now easier in VoiceOver mode - Access to Arabic secondary characters by tapping shift key IMPROVED - Autocorrect will now change what you mean to type less - Stability and performance improvements FIXED - Autocorrect turned on (sometimes) in email textfields - Accented characters are hidden for some languages If you've been enjoying Fleksy Keyboard, please take a minute to leave a nice review. It really goes a long way!

How do you capitalize letters when entering them manually?

Alright guys, this discussion about Fleksy no longer caring about us visually impaired users won't take us anywhere. I suggest that we, instead, focus on stating what already works and what still needs improvement. Below I will discuss both the positive and negative aspects in version 5.0. We all know that the Fleksy app itself needs much work regarding VoiceOver navigation, so I will concentrate on the use of Fleksy as a third party keyboard instead. I would appreciate it if one of you beta testers could please share these words with the Fleksy development team, heck, you can even take credit for writing them if you like! Here we go:

Fixes and New Features:

I would say that the most important fix on version 5.0 is the ability to once again enter specific characters with VoiceOver. This is done by holding one's finger on a character for about a second, after which VoiceOver speaks the letter or symbol that is being touched; lifting the finger enters it into the active text field. The lack of this feature is perhaps the main reason why version 4 was unusable as one's main keyboard. I have to say that it still needs much work though, characters are sometimes entered, sometimes not, and there is no audible feedback to let a blind user know what happened. There is also a serious issue when using this with a language that employs alternative characters, such as accented letters. If one holds a finger on a letter with alternative character options, these alternative characters appear almost immediately, completely disrupting specific character VoiceOver input functionality. This results in no character being entered at all, or in an accented or alternative letter being selected rather than the primary one. To fix this, alternative characters need to stay hidden much longer when VoiceOver is active, maybe 3 seconds would be good, similar to how the standard iOS keyboard operates. There also needs to be some kind of audible or spoken alert when the alternative characters appear.

The new feature that I find most interesting is Extensions. I particularly like the option to add a number row above the keyboard. It is also great that the numbers need to be activated as standard buttons rather than accepting direct touch input like the letter keys; otherwise this would result in complete chaos when typing because letters and numbers would constantly intermix. I believe that these extensions have great potential in making Fleksy a better and more complete product for sighted and blind users alike.

Bugs and Issues:

The best word I can think of to describe my current Fleksy experience is inconsistent; it can sometimes be great but can also turn into a total disaster.

Lets start with launching the keyboard. Every time that Fleksy needs to be reloaded into the RAM (after respringing or powering off the device), spoken feedback is disrupted. When voice feedback is working properly, only full words (not characters) are spoken after entering a space by swiping to the right (even if the speaking characters and words option is selected in VoiceOver's software keyboards preferences), deleting a word will result in VoiceOver saying "deleted [deleted word]", and word and punctuation options will be given much more reliably when swiping down. To get spoken feedback to function correctly, I need to go into the Fleksy app itself and modify the keyboard in some way (deselect it and select it again, change the size, etc). After performing some of these changes (sometimes one thing does it, sometimes another), voice feedback miraculously works correctly once again. I think that many people are saying that Fleksy is unusable because they have not been able to activate this proper spoken feedback mode altogether.

As stated before, using the two finger vertical swipe gesture to switch between the spacebar and minimal modes is very, very unreliable, so much that I am tending to stay on spacebar mode all the time. Several key mapping issues arise when toggling these modes as well, for example, the letter X or Z can be entered when one is trying to switch keyboards or activate the number pad. I have not encountered these mapping issues when staying away from toggling the two modes completely.

Before I explained why I was so happy about the number keys on the number row extension behaving like normal buttons, well, the same thing needs to happen with the Delete and Shift keys to the bottom right and left of the keyboard. I've frequently accidentally deleted a character when trying to enter an M, and, as far as I know, it is currently impossible to use the Shift key with VoiceOver enabled. The Delete and Shift keys should not be triggered via direct touch, the user should first have to touch them to select them and then perform a double tap or split tap on the screen, like the number row on the top or the bottom row with the Spacebar and keyboard changing keys.

Yesterday I was trying to send some money via the Paypal app, which is how I met the numeric keypad version of Fleksy. I am talking about the 4 row number keyboard like on a telephone and this one also needs some attention. These number keys accept direct touch input like the standard letter keys, which I believe is a mistake; they should work as normal buttons. One needs to be precise when entering a numeric value, it's not like Fleksy will be able to easily "guess" the value we want to enter! This, however, wasn't the worst part. I spent about 5 minutes trying to enter a number with a decimal point in it, and even though I was able to find the Dot key, I never managed to make it work. Suffice it to say that I had to go to a different app to switch back to the standard iOS keyboard before being able to complete my transaction!

I have noticed strange Fleksy behavior on some third party apps like Youtube. When typing in the search field, autocorrection appears to be disabled and swiping back deletes a single character rather than an entire word.

People often forget that VoiceOver users are comprised of two groups, those who are totally blind and those with partial vision. I belong to the second group, and having some vision means that I can actually make use and benefit from themes. Installing a bright theme helps me quickly identify when the keyboard is on the screen and detect the point where the keyboard and the rest of the app content meet. Shortly after installing version 5.0, I purchased the $0.99 Vibrant theme pack, however, after purchasing I have not found a way to select/activate these themes. The Vibrant Theme pack option simply disappeared from the list of themes I can purchase. This means that I am not only unable to benefit from using a theme, but that I have totally wasted my $0.99! I don't understand why one cannot select a theme while using VoiceOver. It would also be great if an Accessibility Theme pack could be included, with high contrast options such as white letters on a black background, yellow letters on a blue background, black letters on a yellow background, etc.

Suggestions for Improving Multi Language Support:

I am a completely bilingual user; my iOS system language is set to English but (living in Mexico) most of the typing I do on my phone is in Spanish. I am therefore, perhaps the perfect test case for proper multi language support implementation and I have a couple of suggestions to improve this experience.

Lets start with the easiest one, making Fleksy bilingual! Complex as it may sound, this feature is, by far, not new or unheard of; several third party keyboards (Swiftkey being the most well known) already allow you to select and use two languages at once. I realize that this could cause problems regarding Fleksy's complex algorithms used to "guess" what we are trying to type, but here's where there is a chance for innovation. Users should be allowed to select a primary and a secondary language, and Fleksy should first try to suggest words from the primary one. I know that there is supposed to be a fast way to change languages by swiping on the spacebar, however, this cannot be done with VoiceOver enabled and having to constantly switch languages can slow you down considerably. Trust me, bilingual people talking to each other will often type 50% of a sentence in each language!

Now on to a more complex suggestion, but one that also needs to be addressed for Fleksy to be fully effective when typing in a language different than the system one. As I said before, my system language is set to English, this sadly means that, when I am typing in Spanish with Fleksy, typed words and word suggestions are spoken using the English TTS voice, not the Spanish voice! Choosing a language within Fleksy should not only change the keyboard layout and word predictions, the corresponding TTS voice for that language should also be selected and used. I don't know how hard it would be to do this, but I believe it is totally feasible. It might, perhaps, be as simple as somehow telling VoiceOver that the words to be spoken are in a different language, since I have noticed that voice switching sometimes happens automatically when reading text in emails or websites in languages other than English. I have slowly managed to become decent at guessing the Spanish word that the English voice is trying to pronounce, but this still considerably hinders my typing accuracy.

Final Thoughts:

I hope that these lines help those who are on the fence about trying Fleksy gain a better understanding about what works, what doesn't and what can be dealt with, but most of all, I hope they can help this project return to its roots as the marvelous accessibility tool it once was. I believe this is totally possible and, although much slower than we would all like, progress is definitely being made!

Regards!

Hi again,

In my previous post I talked about how spoken feedback is not properly loaded when selecting the Fleksy keyboard for the first time or after it has been offloaded from the RAM. I would like to explain this further and share what I have found to be the fastest and most reliable way to activate it.

Basically, voice feedback works correctly when Fleksy takes over all what is spoken by the device when typing. Normally, VoiceOver decides what is being said by monitoring the changes that take place in the text field, i. e., characters or words being entered or deleted. The information that Fleksy reports to the user is slightly different; we don't need to listen to the name of each letter we touch because the point of using Fleksy is to allow us to make mistakes and them being corrected automatically. Also, Fleksy needs to report some extra stuff to the user, like specifying when a word has been deleted or offering alternative word suggestions. I've read in several posts above that people are saying Fleksy is only offering them 2 or 3 word suggestions; this is not true. What is actually happening is that VoiceOver is speaking to them, not Fleksy, and this severely interferes with word suggestions and corrections.

Alright, after this clarifications, here's how I've found to be the fastest way to activate spoken feedback correctly. I use Fleksy in Spacebar mode and the large size.

1. Check whether spoken feedback is working or not by opening the Messages app and trying to type a message. If you hear the mane of each letter you touch, then voice feedback is not working like it should. Note: this assumes that you have the Characters and Words option selected inside VoiceOver's Typing Feedback options for software keyboards. Proceed to step 2 if you find spoken feedback is messed up.
2. Open the Fleksy app.
3. Go to the Size tab on the top right of the screen.
4. If the keyboard is not on the screen, double tap the text field on the bottom to bring it up.
5. Double tap the Switch Keyboard key on the bottom left to select the stock iOS keyboard.
6. Switch back to the Fleksy keyboard using the same method.
7. Select the Minimal mode in the Size options near the top of the screen.
8. Try typing a few letters, you should now only hear clicks and the word you typed should only be announced after swiping right.
9. If desired, select Spacebar mode once again.

I encourage you guys to try this out and share your experience.

Regards!

Patience - I think we have to be patient with new releases (just as we had to be with the iOS 8.0 update which was very frustrating before the accessibility bugs were mostly worked out).

These developers have been pretty committed to us and VoiceOver accessibility in the past. I'm sure they are very, v very busy now with all of the new features they've been adding.

I'm hopeful that this is just a transition period and that, eventually, most of these access issues can be worked out.

In the meantime, if you want to help users like us as well as help the Fleksy developers make this app more accessible, perhaps people can start writing to the Apple accessibility support team to make them aware of issues in iOS 8 that make our experience with third party keyboards less than it could be.

In particular, I'm thinking of several Apple related issues that I would like to see addressed when using third party keyboards with VoiceOver:

1. Apparently the "dictation" button / feature is not available to developers of third party keyboards. To me, this is an essential feature for visually impaired users since, even if a keyboard is easy to use, sometimes it is just easier and more efficient to use dictation. There is no reason that we should have to switch back to the Apple default keyboard to use this feature and then return to our preferred keyboard when done.

2. When creating a mail note with Fleksy, I notice that I cannot use the swipe left / right gesture to move from field to field of the mail header as I can do when using the Apple keyboard. Again, this is an iOS bug that should be fixed in order to make it possible to use third party keyboards with the same gestures that we can use the Apple default keyboard.

So maybe we can approach this on two fronts - Get Apple to fix some of its issues related to third party keyboards and provide the Fleksy team with feedback that will help them improve the experience when using VoiceOver. I think these solutions won't happen over night, but, as we've seen other issues fixed in iOS and Fleksy, perhaps over time we'll see some improvements.

--Pete

To each his/her own. However, it is my opinion that maintaining that dictation is more essential for blind or visually impaired users than it is for sighted users is wrong and underestimates the capabilities of blind and visually impaired users. You may find dictation convenient and useful; I (who am also blind) find it inaccurate, unuseable except in the quietest of environments and a waste of Cupertino server power. (grin)

But different strokes for different folks!

Fleksy was the tipping point for me to finally jump ship from my old Nokia to the iPhone a couple of years back. I noticed and installed the new update the other day. Until I read this post today I forgot I hadn't even tried the newest version. Enough said, a sad fall of a once truely essential app

Has anyone tried the latest version? It mentions making single character entry easier with Voice Over.

Hi all, I was just wondering what are the badges section found in the Fleksy app for and what do they do. Thanks much Daniel.

I personally find it easier to enter characters in the new version. Capitalizing words is an interesting prospect, but for just entering letters it seems to be pretty good.

Yes, this version does seem to be a bit more useable.

Practice definitely helps. The size of the keyboard seems to be a bit smaller than I am used to.

When I first start a new session with the keyboard it seems to garble words - Sometimes suggesting words that are either complete gibberish or do not even contain the same number of letters that I've typed in. Once it gets started on the right track, however, it mostly seems to work okay. Then, occasionally I'll run into a word that seems to be impossible to get right. I don't know why this is.

Perhaps I should use the minimized keyboard more often but:

a. I can't reliably toggle it on and off with a two finger swipe up / down. I seems to have to do this many times before I toggle to the other state.

b. There isn't a sound associated with making the minimal keyboard visible / invisible - thus, it is difficult to know whether I've successfully switched it on / off. In that case I'll have to touch around the keyboard to see if the spacebar is present, but then this just enters extra characters that I have to deal with and erase without ruining anything else I've previously typed.

Also, I like to keep the non-minimal keyboard operational so that I can use the special keys such as Shift, Delete, and more easily switch back to the Apple default keyboard when necessary.

Overall, the Fleksy keyboard is functional for some things but it is a good thing that we still have access to the default Apple keyboard!

BTW, with all of these new themes being added, I wonder if there is a single theme that is recommended for us when using VoiceOver?

--Pete

Hi all,
I just thought I would post on this thread to say I have now left the fleksy beta program,
am now in the process of trying to leave the facebook beta group.
I have left for my already stated reasons earlier in this thread, lack of contact from developers and serious responses to my feedback.
Really though I haven't scene any serious changes to the fleksy app or keyboard itself that have improved usability or made it anything like as accurate or quick to use as in the old days. Yes we have extensions but they are of secondary interest to me over the ability to be productive and a fast typist with the app and this went a long time ago.I haven't scene any changes in some time that have improved ease of use for me. and I have concluded that fleksy is probably never going to be a seriously useful tool for me again.
word prediction is still not very accurate and I get hardly any words offered, plus the awful sounds in the app and the lack of helpful messages when all text is deleted are big issues for me. Added to which of course we have the poor layout of the actual fleksy app itself with the themes scattered everywhere, OK yes we don't need the fleksy app itself once everything is configured but it should be easy to navigate an use.

Okay, before people get all up in arms, I would like to point out something that I saw from the inception of the fleksy ap. When the ap first came out, the community at applevis jumped behind the developer, and they built an ap that was truly accessible. I was not one of the ones who bought the ap, but I did get it when it was first free. Then came the turning point in the relationship between applevis, and the fleksy team. The release of fleksy vo. Now, I am a proponent of Universal access and design, particularly in education. Here is whare I am going to get people mad at me, and I'm not going to apologize. The Fleksy team wrote in great detail as to why they made a different ap. They said it was a change that was not permanent, and that eventually the ap would be one ap again. Still, as much as I didn't like it, fleksy was at that time accessible. What did the majority of the blindness community do, and I"m talking about not only people here, but others, what did they do? I'll tell you what they did, said the most horrible things about the developers who did on there part actually have the curdisy to start with us as the testers. To put it another way, the blind community became very hostile, not just professionally dissatisfied. Believe me, there is a difference between the 2. Yes, fleksy has not been accessible lately, and I too have received one line responces to my e-mails. But let this be a lesson to us all. Many people have said on here that the developers of fleksy stabbed us in the back. That may be true, but we stabbed first, not because we did not agree with a change, but because we did it so rudely, and with such hostility. I mean seriously? I've installed fleksy because it's a separate ap? Did any of you not read why that was? While I will agree that the ap is hardly at all useable, I think the blind community should take some blame for how indifferent the developer is treating us. Yes there mainstream, yes there famous, but we as the former base users, spat in the face of a developer who wanted us to make there ap accessible, and that is an absolute shame.

Hello, I'm glad to see the new update is partially accessible. But none of you explained, whether it's accessible without turning off VO? Or do we wana turn off vo still? Experts kindly explain.

Raaj.

There is no need to turn off Voiceover. My suggestion is to download and play with the app. Once you get used to it again, then start using it for more and more daily typing needs. If you haven't used it lately, it will take some getting used to, but it will mostly work. That is my opinion.

Even though I use it a good bit, I'm sure there are still plenty of tricks I am unaware of.

Hi Guys,
I was considering downloading the app and I have been reading the description and some comments here. I am a little confused. Would you recommend the app? I mean, is it going to increase my productivity, my typing speed, or not? I understand that it takes some getting used to which is why I wanted to ask first.
I'm confused because this is by far the most recommended app on AppleVis so you'd think it was good. The accessibility comment of the description says "For the most part it is mostly accessible but still has some issues for VoiceOver users." which tells you nothing about the prospects for your productivity. And then when you read the comments, it looks like it's actually not really accessible any longer.
So, if I spend some time getting used to it, will I be able to type faster? Is it worth it?
Thanks a lot!

I think the only way you will answer this question is to download and try the app for yourself as everyones experience is different. I personally would no longer recommend it, but some people have had positive experiences with it. Myself I would recommend mBraille without hesitation there third party keyboard works very well, and doesn't squash the typing area up really small on the screen. This shows fleksy have deliberately designed the app in such a way to do this, and they could definitely learn a lot from how mBraille have done things. I would also recommend apples own built in braille screen input which is good but a little clunky to use with activating and deactivating it. with fleksy I also got frustrated when developers refused to listen to feedback in the beta program and left it. Fleksy could easily add some sort of mode to let the fleksy keyboard have more typing area if VoiceOver was enabled, also the actual fleksy app is a mess all covered in themes that just clutter the screen up, and the feedback sounds are not very easy to hear. I also got frustrated with the developers when I sent very long detailed emails with feedback and suggestions and got replies that were almost rude as I had sent lengthy messages of several paragraphs and got two sentence replies with none of my feedback being acted on. I know developers can't act on all suggestions they receive but when they don't listen to several people who make the same suggestion that tells you they have switched firmly over to the sighted market. I have actually just withdrawn my app recommendation, and I would encourage those who feel the same as me to do so as why should this app keep our recommendations based on the usability deterioration and lac of engagement from the developers. I had forgotten I had recommended this app, but would encourage anyone who agrees with me to follow my example and withdraw there recommendations, there's a link called I would no longer recommend this app, just click it and that's it. I would of course really like to be able to restore my recommendation in the future and also work with the developers to improve things but for the time being I would no longer recommend this app, no excuse for the way the app currently is, I mean small typing area especially on a large screened device such as the 6 plus, mBraille has definitely done things right.

Hi, contrary to what most people think, and i'll probably be flamed for this, but i've been flamed for saying what i think before so never mind, i think Fleksy works fine for me. There are still rough edges but i think it works. Would i recommend it? I don't know, there's a learning curve involved, and if you don't want to deal with that learning curve, well then it ain't for you.

Fleksy is a great program. The concept is awesome, and as stated above, when it first came out, it was amazing to use it. However, since the release of iOS 8, Fleksy has unfortunately focused more on bells and whistles than a solid, rock steady app. It is my personal belief that they focus on adding more and more pretty things to look at rather than just making sure that their product is the best it can be. I'm not knocking them if this is the way that they want to go, but for me at least, I want a reliable keyboard that I know will work for me every time. At this time, unfortunately, I do not think Fleksy fits that bill. Hopefully I will change my attitude in the future, as I most certainly will not give up on it. As was stated above, MBraille gets my vote for the best third-party keyboard at this time if you type in braille. Otherwise, obviously, not so much. Haha.

Thanks for your feedback, you probably saved me a lot of time there! I agree with Alex that people should remove their recommendation if they no longer feel this app is recommendable for use with VoiceOver. This being the most recommended app seems somewhat miss-leading.
Thanks again,
Katrine

I use Fleksy on a daily basis as my primary keyboard. I am also a beta tester. There are some bugs and you do have to make sure that your settings are set just right, but I definitely would not say that it is not usable. For those who say that I would ask when was the last time you tried out Fleksy?

Despite my previous comment, and despite that I do not at this time recommend Fleksy as a fulltime keyboard, the thing I do like best about it is that when I don't have two hands to type with, it is a great app. Despite the fact that it has more bells and whistles than I might like, I will use it when I don't have two hands to type with for MBraille. I do think eventually that the developers will work out all of the issues, and like I previously have stated, I look forward to the time when Fleksy can be considered a very reliable option for the VI community because the concept is awesome.

My issue with fleksy as it currently stands is that the typing area is two small, and there is no way for it to flip the screen automatically into landscape mode, I don't find it very easy typing with just one hand, I liked the old days where fleksy took over the hole screen like braille screen input and Mbraille now do.
I am sure these could be added as features for VoiceOver users. I know I don't have to use the main fleksy app much but it is a mess. When actually trying to type say in messages with fleksy I find often I get rubbish out and this never used to happen. I personally don't think fleksy is any more efficient than the stock ios keyboard as it stands now if your totally blind. I am still very happy to work with the developers, but I think they out grew us a long time ago as it certainly could improve in a lot of areas. I mean the feedback sounds they ust don't inspire confidence when typing, and the fact they don't really respond to messages with personalized and detailed comments. As to the last time I tried it, I actually try each version when it comes out, and then usually delete it a few minutes after trying it out, its just not very efficient when using it in ios. The developers haven't shown any interest in changing the layout of the main fleksy app to be more VoiceOver friendly, there are large bits of the screen that don't speak at all in between that huge mess of themes, which really they should make hidable with a button or something, and the menu button isn't very easy to find. These have been long standing issues I mentioned on several occasions to the developers and they haven't done anything about them. Now what does it say if they won't even consider making changes to the layout of the actual fleksy app or even fix the bits of the screen in there that don't say anything and just clik. For me the true power of fleksy was that it took over the hole screen which made it much faster for me to use in the old days and it could switch to landscape mode automatically, Now if they had some sort of classic fleksy option where it would behave like it did pre ios8 and where it could take over the hole screen I might very well use it again as my primary keyboard, for now though I use a combination of Bluetooth keyboard, mBraille and apples own Braille screen input.

I agree with Alex. I found the old, VO-specific Fleksy a joy to use -- and I use one hand. But Fleksy as it now stands is a bust for me.
In addition to Alex's wish-list, I wish a stand-alone Fleksy (a la Fleksy VO), optimized for VO, would again be issued. I mean, I want *no* interaction with Apple's third-party keyboard option -- just an app which does its thing when run. That way, at least theoretically, I don't have to diddle with a plethora of settings.
Oh well.

In response to mike, I don't agree with you on the wish for a Vo specific fleksy app, the developers tried that and the community reaction was less than enthusiastic to put it mildly. Plus the developers would then have to maintain two separate apps which wouldn't be a good use of resources. also it would make developers see us as different that we had to have a special app issued for us, which was peoples issue with fleksy vo to begin with.
Instead I would like to see everyone using the same app, but with a mode built into it that could be activated to disable many features VoiceOver users won't use, and that would just make it more comfortable for us. Still, we don't have to rely just on fleksy now we have other options though none quite as good as fleksy was in the old days.

What's New in Version 5.7

*Note: Please update to the latest version of iOS 8 to fix key known issues with custom keyboards and improve your Fleksy experience.

FEATURED

Integrated Imoji Sticker Keyboard! We have partnered with Imoji to bring a visual communication to Fleksy Keyboard.
- Millions of stickers, thousands created daily
- Smart suggestions, stickers that work like magic
- Keyword sticker search
- Curated Trending Stickers
- Personalized sticker collections
- Create your own stickers with the imoji app
- All the best reaction stickers
- Double tap stickers to add them to favorites
- Access recently used stickers

Smart Suggestions for GIFs and Imoji Stickers!
- Popular searches and trending words will be highlighted on the extension as you type with Fleksy--tap on the smart suggestions for relevant content

FIXED

- Searching/sending GIFs is much faster now
- Korean language fix for shift button
- Other various fixes and stability improvements
my own personal comments below this
doesn't look at all interesting from an accessibility point of view, still will install it just to see then probably delete after a few minutes. Oh and we have another name change, these guys really don't seem able to fix on a name, still I guess they have to highlight there latest and most useless bells and whistles I guess.

Now that MBraille is a third-party keyboard, I have stopped using Fleksy. I believe Fleksy has its uses, but I do not have time to try and keep learning all of its little bells and whistles when all I want from a keyboard is just a fast, simple keyboard to type on. I am not calling it a bad program, but it is not for me.