Show HN: Typewise keyboard taking on Google (10x Dvorak and 100% Privacy)

I do like the swipe to edit / delete feature though.

Why would I care about my keyboard? On average, we use our smartphone keyboard 76 times every single day. To me at least that seems like a darn lot. Now the problem is that using the keyboard is not much fun. Small keys lead to a lot of typos (according to a Uni Cambridge study, 1 out of 5 words contains typos). Auto correction often does something different to what I want. And as soon as I type in multiple languages most keyboards fail completely. Once we realized that we’re actually using a keyboard built for typewriters in the 19th century, it became clear that it’s time for something new and better.

This is why we built Typewise, a keyboard made for mobile devices, resulting in 4X fewer typos than the standard keyboard (based a standardized academic test https://typingtest.aalto.fi). The starting point was the hexagonal layout. Hexa-what? Our thinking was that since our fingerprints are round, so should the keys be, to maximize the distance between the key centers and thus reduce typos. On first sight it may look confusing. If you look a bit closer, you’ll see that the letters are almost equal to the current keyboard. There’s not much to be gained by reshuffling the letters (just see how many people use Dvorak, an alternative 10-finger keyboard…yes, almost nobody). We also thought about how to make the most of touch screens, and implemented gestures to delete/restore text, capitalize letters, etc. That way, we got rid of shift and backspace keys, further freeing up space for the actual letters. Because not everyone wants to learn a new way of typing, we’re currently implementing a gradual learning curve, where the user will start at the standard keyboard and then transitions step by step to the new solution, able to stop anytime she wants. The whole thing can then also be gamified, taking the keyboard from a purely utilitarian product to a fun experience.

Your privacy is at stake. Most alternative keyboards require “full access” (iOS) or other advanced permissions such as internet access, GPS location, browser history (Android). Why? Because most of their business models are built around user data. Especially Chinese made keyboards (such as Kika, TouchPal, Cheetah) have been in the news that they are abusing their access to user data and have subsequently been removed from the app stores.

As a Swiss company, even though we’re not a bank, we protect people’s privacy. For now, we do that by making our keyboard completely offline and not asking for any permissions. That way all user data remains on the device. Luckily, we received a research grant by the Swiss government and are now working together with amazing AI engineers from ETH Zurich, the “Swiss MIT”. Our goal is to build better predictions than Google, while guaranteeing full privacy. We understand that there are certain shortcomings; for example, integrating GIFs requires internet access. So we are devising a way of combining internet-enabled features with full privacy protection.

Taking on Google & Co. is never easy. We need more people to join our journey and we’d love to hear from you if our mission sounds interesting to you. You can try and use Typewise for free: https://typewise.app – there is a premium version; since we’re not collecting and commercializing user data, this is our only way of getting some revenue, paying the bills and continue the development (incl. that awesome brain-computer machine). Suggestions are welcome :-) Over to HN! Cheers, David & the team