Skype failing to give notifications, touch typing questions, delayed password fields.

By Khomus, 4 February, 2024

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hi all. First, is it better to combine questions like this, or to post separately? I'm combining to try and reduce spamming the forum, but they are totally unrelated things. Anyway, on to the questions, the joy!

First, Skype. If I'm not in Skype, I get no notifications whatsoever. This is on latest iOS and with the latest Skype, which I just installed today. I have push notifications on, I have push notifications for multiple devices on in both Skype on iOS and Windows. So far as I know, I'm set up correctly, and I should be getting them.

And now for something completely different, touch typing, good holy gods! I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but here's how touch typing went for me, before I switched back to regular. "d s a, alpha, as, as, aster", now whatever I was typing has the word aster inserted and I have to go and delete it all.

What am I doing wrong here? Is there a podcast or tutorial? Normally I prefer text, it's faster, but for something like this, maybe a demo would be better? I get the basic idea, I slide to a letter and pick up my finger, and it immediately types the letter.

It's just that it clearly seems to be getting into a mode where it's trying to complete things for me, and I don't know how to reject it and get back to letter sliding. I do feel like it might be faster after some practice, if I can stop it from incorrectly completing things for me.

Finally, when typing with a Bluetooth keyboard, the Logitech K380 recommended here, it mostly works fine, except when I get into password fields. It gets very slow, at least when wearing OpenRun Pro, and I have to wait for every click to happen, because if I try to type at my normal speed, I'll just lose characters.

I picked up an iClever Bk10 because I noticed the Logitech is using BT 3.0, (apparently this is being marketed as BT classic!", and the iClever uses 5.1 I think. I thought it could be the OpenRun, but they're using 5.1 too. I also just kind of wanted to try the iClever anyway, but I'm curious if this is likely to fix things. If not, any other suggestions?

Thanks in advance for all the help, everybody!

Options

Comments

By Simon Jaeger on Thursday, February 1, 2024 - 20:50

You're having problems because the swipe keyboard is on. If you hold your finger for long enough, you'll start autocompleting words based on where you move your finger. So instead of touching and lifting your finger to type the word "apple", you could start on the A, wait for the sound, move your finger to P and leave it there a little longer, move it down to l, and then move it to E. Even if you don't get the positions exactly correct, it tries to figure out which word you want to type and autocomplete it. you can turn this off in keyboard settings for the whole OS, or in the rotor for VoiceOver specifically. you can also adjust the touch delay in VoiceOver settings, but I find it's best to just set that to 0 and either turn it on or off, because any length of time spent holding your finger there is time wasted while trying to type a word.

I don't have good answers to your other questions. Skype is dead to me, especially on mobile. Last I checked, it's still pushing accessibility announcements and not letting you interrupt them to navigate the interface, which is an issue that has plagued Skype since early 2017. It makes the app nearly unusable if you're getting lots of notifications, so I just stopped using it. I have the K380, but last I checked, it seems to work well for me. I have no idea what could be causing it to lag in password fields. I hope you can get these answered.

By Brian on Thursday, February 1, 2024 - 20:50

If you prefer Touch Typing over Standard Typing, then disabling Slide to Type will definitely increase your productivity.

Regarding Skype, you would likely do better with Microsoft Teams or Google Meet.

As for the Logitech K380 , it is a popular keyboard, and I think you may be the first to mention the latency when typing passwords. hopefully someone more knowledgeable than I on that particular keyboard will have some advice for you. 😅

By AppleVis on Thursday, February 1, 2024 - 20:50

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Regarding your question about whether to combine or split questions, it's generally best to post each unrelated question as a separate thread on AppleVis, rather than combining multiple questions into one post. There are a few reasons for this:

  1. It keeps discussions focused and on-topic. When a post contains multiple disparate questions, it can be difficult for readers to follow the different threads and address everything properly. Separate threads allow each question to get the full attention it deserves.
  2. It makes the forum easier to search and navigate. Having many topics mixed together in one post makes the relevant content harder to find later when users search or browse the forum. Clearly separating questions into their own threads keeps things organised.
  3. It allows questions to be categorised accurately. AppleVis has separate forum areas like iOS, macOS, Braille, etc. With just one post containing multiple questions, you can only select a single area even if your questions span different platforms or topics. Creating separate threads for each question allows you to post them in the most relevant area of the forum.
  4. It enables getting the most relevant expertise. Certain AppleVis community members may have specialised knowledge in one area and not others. Isolating questions gets your posts in front of the people most qualified to provide replies.

By kool_turk on Thursday, February 1, 2024 - 20:50

The Skype issue has persisted for as long as I can remember.

I needed to use Skype without a PC, so I decided to install it on my phone.

Not only does it notify inconsistently, but Braille Screen Input also doesn't function properly.

It does work, but you can't actually type with it, at least not in Skype.

Regarding the typing issue, I turned off all auto features, including autocorrect and slide-to-type. I'm not sure if I disabled the keyboard that switches to special characters.

Not that I use Skype much.

Mainly, it's because of a group I'm in; otherwise, I wouldn't bother with it.

By Tayo on Thursday, February 1, 2024 - 20:50

this has been an ongoing problem in the iOS version of Skype for ages now. Slightly oT, but the Android version doesn't appear to have this problem. In any case, Skype as a social platform is basically the elderly relative who refuses to give up the ghost. I haven't used Teams or Meet with any consistency, mostly because my colleagues are PC and Jaws users. Both seem accessible, though.

By Khomus on Thursday, February 1, 2024 - 20:50

Thanks everybody! I still use skype because I know people on it, also nothing else really sends files like it. today I started getting notifications, but good to know they might go away.

Re: touch typing

Cool, I'll go turn that off right now.

Questions:

Good to know, I'll do that going forward. I just figured since I had a few of them, I wouldn't post a bunch of stuff all at once and potentially spam the forum. Now I know what the policy is.

Password fields:

It might be the lag with everything going through Bluetooth, from keyboard to phone and from phone to Shokz. The new keyboard is supposed to be showing up today, so I'll find out soon. Like I said I've been curious about the iClever stuff for a while now and it's cheap enough, right around what I paid for the K380, so no big loss if it doesn't work out, we'll just have another keyboard handy.

By Curtis Chong on Thursday, February 1, 2024 - 20:50

Greetings. I recommend turning off "slide to type". Being a purist in writing myself, I also turn off auto-correct and word prediction. This is more of a stylistic preference as opposed to something that I would urge everybody else to do<grin>.

By Khomus on Thursday, February 8, 2024 - 20:50

I just thought I'd pop in to let everybody know that the issue with password fields being super slow to type in is totally a Shokz thing, I have the OpenRun Pro, paired with an iPhone XR. I doubt newer Bluetooth would help but I see the Shokz do 5.1 and the phone only does 5.0, and you don't get updated until I think the 14, which jumps to 5.3.

To be clear, touch typing in passwords, i.e. on the screen, works fine through Shokz. It's only when you have the keyboard doing Bluetooth and the Shokz doing Bluetooth at the same time that you have a problem. Even trying to ignore the clicks doesn't help, at least it didn't for me, I feel like it didn't accept all of the characters I typed, even though, as I've said I think, normal typing works fine.