SwiftKey Keyboard Now Accessible!

By Robert A.M., 31 March, 2016

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hi,

Just noticed that the changelog for SwiftKey Keyboard v1.4.8 mentions accessibility improvements and support for VoiceOver!

It looks like we will now have another third party keyboard, besides buggy Fleksy, to use. The SwiftKeyapp is already more accessible than Fleksy's!

I encourage people to test it and provide feedback, both here and directly to the developer!

Cheers!

Options

Comments

By Fatima.Hamoud10 on Saturday, March 26, 2016 - 09:38

I just downloaded the swiftKey keyboard app on my iPod touch (5th generation) and it's very accessible. I would like to thank SwiftKey for making the keyboard accessible with VoiceOver. All elements are clearly labelled.

By alex wallis on Saturday, March 26, 2016 - 09:38

what are the advantages of using this over the regular keyboard or something like braille screen input? how does its operation differ to these other methods? find it hard to believe anything could be as fast as BSI but very willing to be proved wrong. I mean I guess we are not talking as good as fleksy like in the old days before they abandoned there target market.

I am Not sure about braille screen input, but the SwiftKey keyboard learns from you. It can transmit everything you type. The iOS keyboard can't do that. Also the SwiftKey keyboard gives you lots of word predictions.

By alex wallis on Saturday, March 26, 2016 - 09:38

do you still have to navigate the letters like you do on ios I mean try to find some of the letters of a word you want to type? although I think them making it accessible is great and definitely to be welcomed if you still have to hunt around for particular letters for me at least braille screen input and a Bluetooth keyboard are probably far more efficient though I am sure others will find it useful. I just never got on with the ios on screen keyboard from day one. I am sure there will be a podcast out soon on it.

By Steve Sawczyn on Saturday, March 26, 2016 - 09:38

I'm super excited they've finally added accessibility, but wondering how it compares to Fleksy? My biggest challenge when entering text on iOS is entering it one-handed. Fleksy solved this for me for a while with its predictive input thing which allowed me to tap where I thought the letters should be rather than where they actually were. Fleksy's so buggy now though that it hardly seems efficient anymore unless I'm doing something wrong. Maybe Swiftkey can help fill this gap?

By Robert A.M. on Saturday, March 26, 2016 - 09:38

Hi,

I have no doubt that Braille Screen Input might be a faster way to enter text, however, I should remind you that a large number of low vision VoiceOver users are not familiar with Braille; this is, therefore, not an option.

Another advantage of SwiftKey compared to the stock iOS keyboard is that it allows you to type in two languages at once. This is huge for bilingual users like myself.

Cheers!

By raaj on Saturday, March 26, 2016 - 09:38

Hello nice people.

I tried this SwiftKey and I don't think the jusctures are not similar to flexy VO or fleksy. I loved flexy VO much. I am wanting something similar to that. Smile. This is predicting but don't see much options like fleksy though.

In short, we can just touch the place approximately as per the fleksy to type a character. And if we swipe right with one finger, the fleksy will say what it typed. We can also add words to the dictionary. I dono about the new fleksy whether it is workable or not. I haven't even tried that.

Take care.

Raaj.

By KE7ZUM on Saturday, March 26, 2016 - 09:38

I actually don't care for it. the layout is so big I get lost on it easily. I guess I'm spoiled by the regular ios keyboard. Hehahahaaha!

Blessings and happy Thursday

By Lifestar on Tuesday, April 26, 2016 - 09:38

Hello Swiftkey users!
I have been playing with this app for a while and like it quite a lot. The only problem I have is finding the Send button in apps like Messages, Skype, ect. If I swipe to the left, I get all the messages in the conversation. If I swipe right, I find all word suggestions and a keyboard itself. What do you do in such situations? Which gesture should I use in order to be able to get out of the editing field, find the Send button and tap it? Thanks in advance!

By Robert A.M. on Tuesday, April 26, 2016 - 09:38

In reply to by Lifestar

Hi there,

Yes, unfortunately this is a VoiceOver bug affecting all third party keyboards; the exact same thing happens when using either Swiftkey or Fleksy. I have already emailed Apple to report it; I encourage you all to do the same (accessibility@apple.com) so they see that this is bothering several people and make fixing it a priority.

For now, the only way to navigate to the "Send Message" button while using third party keyboards is to move your finger around the screen until you touch it.

Regards!

By Raul on Sunday, June 26, 2016 - 09:38

I'm having a quite disturbing issue. I like this keyboard very much because I can use both spanish and english without changing keyboard. But after some use on any edit field with VoiceOver I can't see the keys with the screen reader. When I touch the keyboard area VO goes silent and I have to disable and enable it. This usually fixes the problem or sometimes changes the keyboard to the iOS one. Has anyone had this problem? I wrote the developers but they can't reproduce the issue.

By Apple Khmer on Monday, December 26, 2016 - 09:38

Bummer! I was going to try it, but I saw Thai wasn't one of the supported languages.