I’ve long been a super fan of Minuum Keyboard. I backed the IndieGoGo campaign and then bought it when it was officially released for Android. It’s been my daily driver for 11 years.
Everyone has different wants and needs for a keyboard and I was lucky to find mine met in Minuum.
I had this powerful computer in my pocket and felt that it should compute at all times and make my life easier. The sloppy typing model did that for me. I never understood why people wanted a keyboard to replicate that of a typewriter and take up all that real estate, keyboards were supposed to get out of the way, not take up more room.
I dreamed about the machine learning algorithm improving to the point that I would never ever need to open it up to full mode, but when they should’ve been making improvements in that regard, they started trying to make emoji keyboards.
Unfortunately they couldn’t make the company profitable in a way that could sustain them and pay the backers and it fell into disrepair.
Still I persisted. The unparalleled typing speed and efficiency was out of this world and that’s all I wanted. An experience designed for mobile that excelled at mobile.
Unfortunately with Android 15 and no update since 2017 I believe, it’s now time to say goodbye. The bottom row is inaccessible in the latest iteration of Android.
There was some brief hope last year when one of the developers promised an update should they get time to clean up the code, but it never came to fruition.
The downfall of Minuum was that people prefer familiarity and that sucks as it was a glimpse of the future or what the future could be.
Burn the pyre!
End the stream Dave!
I’m sad that I’m first hearing about this keyboard now when it’s far too late to enjoy. That keyboard looks awesome. Thanks for sharing.
I can’t put in into words without typing an essay, but all my dreams and excitement for devices are pretty much dead. There was a time when operating systems and apps and keyboards were exciting; they were trying new things and throwing stuff out there. Most of it wasn’t perfect but it let you set your phone up in your own way. I used to play around with launchers and custom roms. Now I’ve given up. So much is Apple-fied now.
My favorite keyboard was the original Swype that came with the first galaxy phones. It just felt like an intelligent step forward.
RIP minuum keyboard
I still miss Swype; I’m not aware of any other board that allows gesture cut copy and paste in quite the same way. Also the capitalisation was really easy. I’m using openboard now and it’s fine but lacking that premium feature set
Check FUTO keyboard, privacy focused with a bunch of neat features and the devs listen to suggestions
I’ll give it a go, thanks!
OK I’m using it to type this. Seems quite good! Thanks for the rec
Omh I just downloaded it that right now, indeed it’s a really good keyboard, I toyed this without watching or editing the result so if there are some typos I left in this comment
Because it doesn’t connect to the internet, it has a personalised predictive text which gets better with use. I like the feature of swiping back from the delete key. It’s still in alpha but I like where Louis Rossman and team are taking it. The voice typing is also pretty good.
Wow the swiping to delete is the bomb!!!
You swipe on the delete key, select the text and then it’s gone!
Wow I missed this feature from the days of blackberry 10 when a swipe to the left deleted the last word
Now I only need “swipe up to capital letters”
I tried it and while I like a lot about the local voice transcription, keyboard layout, etc., the autocorrect was so bad I had to change back to Heliboard.
I hadn’t seen this one before. It looks promising.
Also check out 8vim
Probably not exactly what you are looking for but 8vim is really polished and it doesn’t get enough attention as a swiping keyboard. I don’t need autocorrect with it and it is easy to learn the layout of.
Oof thanks for the recommend. I will have to keep that one in the back pocket for a rainy day I think. Looks like quite a steep learning curve!
it is different but very simple
There was an update this February according to apkmirror. But it’s delisted from Google play
Between Minuum, Nintype and Keymonk, novelty keyboard makers really need to start open sourcing their abandoned products!
I love Minuum and have been using it for years until … 2015ish. I moved back to my country and they keyboard doesn’t support non-latin writing is not convenient for me, I would have to switch keyboards when chatting with different people.
Maaan, I remember the original Indigogo video that had the jacked up sound levels, so it sounded like the founder said his name was “Will Womwom”.
But the tech was very cool, and I’m a little sad that it’s been abandoned.
