Is braille screen input reliable and useful?

By Melanie, 22 September, 2016

Forum
Braille on Apple Products

Hi all. I've tried using braille screen input off and on since iOs8 but never have much success. Sometimes I can get it to work for a while, but then, just as I'm thinking its the greatest thing ever, crazy things start happening. The dots don't seem to register correctly no matter what I do. The letter p becomes l or w becomes j and b becomes a colon. It sometimes helps to recalibrate my dots, but more often than not, that makes no difference. I am wondering if others have avoided this problem and find this a useful tool, or do you share my disappointment? I would love to hear from anyone who does use bsi successfully and can share the secret to your success. I have no clue how to make it work consistently, so if you do know how, please share. Thank you in advance!
Melanie who would prefer writing in braille to using the virtual keyboard any time!

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Comments

By Annette on Thursday, September 22, 2016 - 05:42

I absolutely love BSI! In fact, if I can help it, I don't use any other keyboard, and now that we have feedback with contracted Braille in IOS 10, it's even better. I occasionally get the issues you mentioned, but it doesn't happen very often, and when it does, I just recalibrate the dots and go on. I love it! I don't know if this makes a difference or not, but I'm using a 6S-plus in tabletop mode.

By ryan97 on Thursday, September 22, 2016 - 05:42

personally for me, the built-in braille input is not something I'm a huge fan of, in either of it's modes that I know of anyways
I'm used to a brailler style, which it just does not or cannot give me... not sure which. tabletop mode I find just weird, no questions asked. the dots in a V shape just... not for me.
As a result I generally use MBraille, downside being you have to pay a small amount to be able to use it everywhere, but the piano keyboard layout IMO makes it worth the cost. I use an iPhone 6, MBraille lets me have the 6 dots lined up brailler style straight across the screen which braille screen input doesn't allow.
as to your actual question though I'm sorry but I have no idea, lol but if you're willing to try out an alternative if you haven't before, the actual MBraille app is free and there is a keyboard you can test... you just have to pay to use it outside of the app itself

By sockhopsinger on Thursday, September 22, 2016 - 05:42

I find MBraille generally the most reliable braille keyboard to use. The standard BSI annoys me because often when you swipe right for a space, the swipe registers as a dot which completely interrupts the flow of writing. That is just my personal opinion, though.

Interesting. I use a 6plus and chose it partly because I thought it would make bsi easier. It hasn't yet. Is there a secret to success?