Are you happy with the keyboard solutions on iPhone?

If your friend knows braille, they may enjoy using Apple's built-in braille keyboard. Another alternative would be @MBraille which is one of my favorites. A third alternative, and this would be using more of a regular style keyboard, is an app called @Fleksy. Just a couple of options, although by no means, all of them.

There are several different modes for typing even with the built-in iOS keyboard. Of course, there is what is called standard typing, where you flick to the letter you want and then double tap it ( a very slow method). There is touch typing where you slide your finger along the keyboard, find the letter you want and lift the finger. New is direct touch typing where you really need a very high level of accuracy to type quick on that, because you basically touch the screen and lift your finger quickly to insert the letter. For myself, I do almost everything through typing. I very seldom use Siri, yet I text, use Facebook, and many other writing apps very frequently through the day. Again, however, when it comes to typing, it is a matter of preference. As I stated, I prefer MBraille, but you will probably get many different answers from many different people.

I am not happy with the standard keyboard and yep |I do write a lot.

Do you want me tto say what I need?

A T9 style keyboard, spread accross the entire screen with nine big keys.
Left and right flicr would navigate the word suggestions.
Give me that and the only irritating thing about a touch phone will drop.

I liked the simpler version of Fleksy (now no longer supported) which was designed specifically for VoiceOver users. I won't use the current version of Fleksy because it has too much stuff catering to the sighted (themes and such) that IMO just gets in the way and I also didn't want an integrated keyboard.

I type a fair amount and use the standard touch-typing where one slides to the letter and lets up to enter it. AS I say, I liked the Fleksy VO version but that's gone. I am not interested (unlike many others) in Braille-style keyboards as I am often typing one-handed and pretty-much one-fingered (my thumbs are too big to text like young people do).

I'd say dictation, which can be dimmed for no reason I can see, is probably the worst option, siri being probably next. I use touch typing, typing pretty quick, I do like how it knows what I type. So if I write yoi it knows i want You. I guess the question we need to ask, is can you give us more information? Is this person well versed in technology? because all of the t9 whcih I think was the press the number twice for d three times for e if I ave that right, or a smart phone won't make much of a difference if they can't grasp it. Bluetooth keyboards small or a normal size as I have Apple's might be better suited, dependign on how they write. It's portable so in theory, can be slid inside a backpack, thin for the most part. If youcan give us soem more info we can help more.

I have a feeling your friend is using the RiVO keyboard. There is a steep learning curve to using that keyboard. I bought it recently and am still learning it. There are a lot of commands to remember. I am interested in learning what others think of the RiVO.
Thanks,
mani

I really liked the original Flecksy. I cannot seem to get the current version to work effectively. I touch type on the standard keyboard, but it's slow and cumbersome. I don't do Braille. I use dictation when i can, but I don't like using it in public. I have not tried an external keyboard. I would rather not have to carry another device.

So yes, I wish I had a better keyboard option.

only problem with braille screen input is that it always switches orientationon me, other than that it's fine. MBraille has some buggy issues, where it causes a lot of crashes

I really don't like the options that I have for the keyboard. In fact, I remember when I updated to IOS 8 the thing I wanted most was integrated 3rd party keyboard support so I could use flexy. Yes, touch typing works, but it's just not all that fast. You could get a Bluetooth keyboard, but then you're having to cary around 2 things which starts to get in the way.

Hi,
I am happy with the current Ios built in keyboard. Yes, it may be slower to type with VoiceOver and the keyboard but practice has made it easier for me to get used to and improve my speed. I am a Braille user so I type with Braille screen input a lot.
That's just my experience though.
Thanks and regards

I unlike most blind people it seems am quite happy with the stock iOs keyboard. Furthermore i'm of the opinion that one should learn thoroughly to use the keyboard before for example going the Bluetooth route and the reason for this is that if your bluetooth keyboard for some reason decides to die on you and you don't know the internal keyboard you're basically up a well known creak without a paddle. I have tried many keyboards through the years, from the Boxwave Keyboard buddy to various big and small bluetooth keyboards to Fleksy, the apple braille keyboard and even mBraille and i keep going back to the good old iOs stock keyboard. It suits me fine and i don't need anything else, although the new fleksy keyboard is very good and gets better by the release. True you don't type long novels with the builtin iOs keyboard but it's good for what i use it for, facebook, twitter, the occasional email and so on. If there was a small no tiny BT keyboard that i could carry with me and that was comfortable to type on and not as big and clumsy as Apples keyboard is in this setting, i'd at least try it out but i have yet to find any that supports the scandinavian keyboard layouts so it's the stock iOs keyboard all the way for me.

I like the keyboard from my iPhone 6 iOS 8.4.1 I am able to type without any issues and I am fast. The only thing I hope apple fix is the next keyboard where the emoticons are. Is not organize unlike it use to be with iOS 7 from page to page.

I use Braille Screen input when i am not using my braille display. I sometimes use the built in iOS keyboard. I mostly like using my braille display at school because I can type faster on it than on the other keyboards.
But I think I could try other keyboard apps.
By the way, Malik, What is the keyboard app you're building called? Or you can also use the predictive text on iOS.

They've made a versioms for the iPhone 4, and 5S, I believe, but not for the 6. For those who don't know, the Spike keyboard is a case that goes over your iPhone and puts a keyboard directly over the keyboard on the screen of your iPhone. This keyboard isn't Bluetooth, however. When you press the keys on the keyboard, something on the back of each key makes contact with your iPhone's screen, and the key on the touchscreen keyboard is pressed. This is awesome, because everything is mechanical and there is no Bluetooth draining your battery.

Thanks,
Shersey

Keyboard is the only really chalenge for blind folks trying an touch screen.
Some of us have more dexterity some of us have less. I am a kind of person who like to have a key under my finger.
The thing is: keys are not needed to navigate screens, sighted people indeed have been doing navigation with mouse and similar devices and now with their fingers for years.
But, for typing keys are needed.
As we might have no physical keys in an telephone the less virtual keys you have the better and this explains why braille input is so successfull: instead of having almost 30 possibilities to input something wrong you have only 10 or so.
The ideal for me would have a flexy style keyboard that supports braille input, where you can start typing and listen automatically for the first suggestion and, from there, navigate by suggestions. The input braille screen hjas some prediction but the quantity and quality of the options are very limited.
However, braille is for a small group of people and T9 is for everyone so I'd gladly use T9 (eight possibilities of entering something wrong) if it were available.

For long texts I use bluetooth. I also dictate a lot but the speech recognition has some fails and edit text in the iPhone is a pain so I use it for very short things.

Hi all. I as I said have the bluetooth keyboard, but I didn't buy it until two years after getting the phone, as i text late at night and lying in bed typing with one finger is a pain int e umm. Anyway I can't type iwth more then one finger, just not easy for me. I agree, usethe os keyboard, because usually when you unlock, you have the os keyboard first,r ather then the braille screen imput, though because i don't use it someone correct me. I knew flexy you have to open the app or something like that. :)

I agree with @tmalik this is the most active forum topic I've ever been on. And @Siobhan you can use the fleksy keyboard as an iOS keyboard. go to settings general then keyboards and Fleksy should be there. @tmalik Is your keyboard that you are working on a whole different device? P.S. I am blind and I use VoiceOver.

Hey!

When you say 12 alphabets we have 12 possible caracters or 12 possible al´pphabets?

Simulating here:
up = a
right = b
down = c
left = d
tap = e
Now give me four of these keys not two
we would have twenty of the twenty six needed letters and it would be very fast.
Now do it with some more options
up up-right right right-down down down-left left left-up
and with four keys you have the world.
Further more, keys do not have a size but they're drown from the point where you first touch one screen, so if you use the top left part of the keyboard on screen your lines could very well go farer than the limits of the key itself.
One touch would speak the possible combinations so you know you touched the right part of one's screen to start drawing.
That's it.

Is your app free and can it be used on an iPad mini? It sounds interesting. Since we are talking about keyboards I have a question about braille screen input with typing passwords. When you are typing a password with braille screen input. Does the braille count the capital as part of the password? for example: If you want a capital M do you do a dot 6 and then the letter M? I hope this makes sense because this is my ffirst time typing with braille screen input. Thanks.

Hello, Brotha, So is it possible to enter passwords with the built in braille keyboard?

Be careful with that. If your password's got special symbols and capital letters in it, it's very tricky. Last few times I tried entering a password with more than one capital letter, it failed. There's no way for you to know what you're typing when entering a password with that keyboard, so special symbols can get messed up too.
I just use the regular keyboard for passwords, it's slower but more accurate with that sort of thing.

All,

It looks like we have two discussions going here. If you have a comment/question not relating specifically to the original poster's question as to whether you are or aren't happy with the current iOS keyboard offerings, please create a new topic rather than posting them here. Doing so will both help you to get your question seen (and possibly answered) by people who can help, and it will also help to keep things organized for those trying to follow the existing discussion. Thank you.

I tried posting a comment before but it didn't go through for some reason. If there are duplicates I apologize. I am willing to help you test this keyboard I have test flight just email me so I can give you my credentials.

I am using VoiceOver and I am still using Fleksy Vo on iPhone 4S and IOS 8.1. Just that very occasionally I can't manage to carry out the 2 finger slide up to get to the menu. If this does happen, I power down the phone and start again and then it's great. Little bit of a pain at times but I love the app. Also I type quite fast on short messages just using touch typing on the normal phone keypad.

Hi, nice to hear from someone who don't bash the new fleksy. I don't know about your specific language but i speak Swedish and Fleksy works very well with Swedish words.
Oh by the way i'm totally blind.