Hello all,
Happy 2023 to everyone! Now, I'm almost certain I know the answer to this but want to put it beyond doubt: I've just upgraded from the series 4 to the Ultra. Is there really, really no way to type on the watch keyboard other than by standard typing/split tap typing? No touch typing at all? No quickpath keyboard otherwise known as slide to type? No braille screen input? Yes yes yes I know BSI on the watch using two hands is an absurd idea but I'll wager it would still be no less irritating than standard typing! I'm creating this thread hoping someone will come along and say: hold on, Bingo, don't worry because there's a wonderful setting you've missed that makes typing not only possible, but a positively champagne experience! I suspect, however, that such will not happen. If I'm right, a proper way of typing goes right to the top of my Watch wish list!
Comments
Thought so
This is indeed the news I expected. It is rather tiresome, isn't it? I know I could pair a this, that or the other and I also read elsewhere a comment by (I think) Bella the cat who said that a handy iPhone keyboard pops up when a text field is open on the watch; to which my response would be: indeed it does, but I might as well just cut out the middle man and respond on the iPhone then, surely? I will send an email as you suggest, Oliver. What a way to start my week off!
how do you even do that?
How do you even do split typing? My options seem to be scribble or dictation. I can use my phone to Typer but it seems a bit random whether tapaping the notification brings up the keyboard or not.
You don't unless..
...you have a series 7 or later, I think. It's only those what have the qwerty keyboard. Then you can split tap away to your heart's content reaching speeds of as much as five words per minute. It'd be quicker to post a letter.
Split tap
I have an Ultra so think that should be OK. Do you have to do anything to open the keyboard?
It should appear
I think it will just appear, sorry that isn't much help. Try opening the messages app and starting a new message. I've never tried scribble, I have the series 8 41mm which can be a pain in the ass to type on. In the next watch OS i hope to god they delete things as you delete them from the phone. I sent a weird message to my brother met for another person because message was gone from the phone, not the watch. Good luck with the keyboard. Yes, I want touch typing so much.
Ah sorry, my fault as usual.....
There was a keyboard language button on the keyboard, which I ignored as I thought it was just what it said. But when I tapped it, I had the option to change to the qwerty keyboard.
At the risk of hijacking this thread and going off on a tangent, is there a knack to get the iPhone keyboard to work? When I have my phone near me, I get a notification and it says tap to show keyboard. If I double tap, maybe, 20 times it might eventually show up. And I don't think it works with a bluetooth keyboard, although juggling all those devices can be a bit awkward anyway!
keyboard
when you need to send message or whatever the keyboard comes up. For me is easy to type by using one finger. Because I was sighted, I can picture the letters suppose to be and able to type fast.
Are ypu tapping to fast?
I find myself expencting the watch to do instantly what i want where it takes a second to respond. Maybe because i'm fastr on a lrger screen, I just have to be patient. Also do you have digital crown navigation turned on? much easier to type like that. I still want touch typing :) Good luck.
just tried with digital crown turned on
it does make things marginally quicker, yes, perhaps 7 or 8 words a minute...so not one for the essay crisis, all you lazy students out there. I haven't measured how many words per minute I can do with BSI but i'm sure it's at least 5,000.
I disagree with some of your comment
The Oliver, many people use their watches for many different things. i'm sure apple will get more improved over time, and the split tapping for me is annoying but usable. I can usually find the keys for my passcode and as I said, using the crown is pretty simple and faster. To suggest that the device isn't for us doesn't quite make sense. I get all my notifications, message etc on it. Now if the next generation of the Os brings deletion from the watch if the corresponding app has also been deleted, say a message, that would improve my usability. It's all in how and what you use it for. I hope apple doesn't make a screneless version, I enjoy being along with my sighted counterparts and apple have enough trouble making as much as they are. However the watch is used should be good enough for the community as a whole.
Typing
Never have issues putting the code I am able to vissualize the number similar to the phone and typing I am good. I was able to type and find what I need. The only issue is that the watch is slow. Using Series 7 and works well. 6:00 AM it gets charge and is fast. Like my watch. Will see what this year comes up. Maybe next year getting what comes up.
blimey Oliver
My dear chap, did the dimentors pay you a visit for new year? I'm afraid I disagree with most of that somewhat negative precis of the watch. i use it for loads of stuff! fitness is part thereof, but not the whole. It's a great piece of kit.
Yeah, maybe just avoid typing on the watch.
The only time I've absolutely had to type on the watch (Ultra) was to join a Wi-Fi network in a coffee place I go to sometimes, and then only because I'd carelessly reset all my network settings on my phone. I think I agree with Oliver to the extent that the watch is sort of for output, or consumption, if you like. Fitness? In a coffee shop full of yummy pastries? Don't be silly!
Leaning towards team Oliver
I must admit I am closer to Oliver’s point of view on this one, though I’m not sure the limitations are entirely related to being VoiceOver users.
For me the watch is very definitely an output device. I glance at it for info like time, step counts, weather etc, and I love receiving notifications simply as a vibration on my wrist.
But if it’s a message that I want to reply to, I find it’s quicker, easier and less painful to take my phone out and use that. Unless my phone is far away, which for me is rarely the case, I don’t see the attraction of responding on the Watch. Is it really such a hassle to reach for the phone. Similarly I recall that Twitter app, Chirp, and could not for the life of me understand why people wanted to read Twitter on their watch. Holding your wrist out in front of you for extended periods of time is not fun to me.
The other thing I use it for is fitness and workouts. There are some tweaks I’d like to make to that, but for the most part it works well.
It’s also great as an alarm. A vibration on the wrist is a much gentler way to be woken up than a loud sound, lol.
Just my personal experience of course.
Dave
input versus output
Ultimately, it doesn't really matter, I would suggest. Input and output are inextricably linked. If I'm teaching, I nevertheless very much like the Outlook previews my watch gives me of the emails I am receiving. Because I am in senior management it is, very occasionally, unavoidable that I respond to such messages immediately. Even when that is not the case I don't have a whole load of catching up to do when I finish teaching and am back doing my job as head of faculty. I can be told discretely that Middlesex have lost a wicket or that saracens have scored a try. When i was teaching constitutional law last October I had the surreal experience of being able to tell my students of the Prime Minister's resignation exactly as it happened and they had no idea how I knew because my phone was in my pocket. It's great to glance at the weather in real time, the watch is a very handy and unintrusive recording device (yes, I do have due regard to privacy and data protection regulations in so using it) and it's marvellous being able to monitor Teams chats and whatnot without getting the phone out all the time. I actually really liked the uncluttered perspective that chirp for twitter gave us. Incidentally, for myself I do think my engagement with twitter might be better were I able to respond from my wrist. Of course it ain't much hassle getting the phone out to respond to X, Y and Z - not until you have the facility of not having to do that. Insofar as concerns the ultra I'm also told it's a jolly smart-looking timepiece, incidentally...now who ever heard of a watch being a watch? i wasn't taking issue with the somewhat technocratic distinction between input and output. Rather I was making the argument, in which I now have even greater faith following these reflections, that it's about a whole lot more than fitness and it's a jolly fine product.
But in any event, this thread was initially about the keyboard and so to an extent all this stuff about input and output is straws in the wind, isn't it? Whether you use it or don't use it, the watch has a qwerty keyboard. At the moment you can only use what is known on the iPhone as standard typing. It would be nice if that were not the case. If you're going to have a qwerty keyboard, make it a good'un!
Keyboard
Indeed, we will all make different choices with regard to how we use the device, but it should have the same typing styles available as those on the iPhone.
watch
Apple need to work more on making it better. Like I stated no issues with typing. When I respond to text and do not want to use the phone I am able to text. Long text is hard. Hope next time it would get better.
FlickType
FlickType should work on the Apple Watch, even the watches that don't support the Apple keyboard, but it does not work with VoiceOver because there is no way to enable direct touch on WatchOS anymore. It does not show up in the rotor or in settings, even though it seems to have been supported before WatchOS 7. FlickType can be used as a separate app on the watch to send a message or maybe a few other things, and a lot of third party watch apps for social media and messaging embed the FlickType keyboard, and it would be perfect except for that bug.
Everyone's different
If Apple developed the fitness ring, I'd not mid the middle finger suggestively vibrating but then again, I grew up with dudes so I am not quite a lady. I use the watch for what I need and you do what you need. Let's see what comes down the pipeline both with the OS and the hardware.
ring on the middle finger?
That's not where Bingo wears his wedding ring, Oliver. The ring finger is the one to the left of it. Let me get my thoughts in early, though: if they develop a ring I want a qqwerty keyboard on it; yes, and braille screen input. let's have Touch ID, Eloquence and Keynote Gold too, please. master Touch Version 1.2 installed. Dos, concept loaded. Main menu. I bet a lot of folk on here would love that.
I said I could type at 5,000 words a minute with BSI earlier in this thread and nobody made any comment about it. perhaps this was a deliberate decision not to humour Bingo's stupidities.
I just use dictation, but that can be clunky at times too!
I just use the dictation feature as I can't see to scribble on the watch. I just got this watch, too, but dictation--although it's still a bit clunky--can work However, as far as I know so far, I can't edit the message with a new dictation/tried with a text but couldn't do it. This is because dictation messed up and put something I didn't need. I had to cancel and go with the message I previously dictated--glad it was similar haha!