Thursday, July 15, 2010

Best Android Keyboard app [Replacement]


One of the troubles I had while adopting android was the poor Inbuilt keyboard. As compared to the iPhone, keyboard does really bad at typing. Its not hard to go wrong with letters since the soft key are kept so near to each other.

Android Keyboard apps

  • Better Keyboard
  • Smart Keyboard
  • Swype
  • SwiftKey
  • Sense Keyboard

Having tried all of them, I found some improvement over the native keyboard, but all of them have one demerit or the other. Few people like swype, but I personally never liked the idea of not lifting fingers while typing. Thanks to the latest hack by XDA member tr.slate, the BEST Android keyboard app has been ported from MOTOROLA Droid X to Android 2.1, 2.2 (froyo).

Having tried this app on 3 different Android devices, I’m totally amazed by how well this keyboard works across different screens. I tested it on low end devices like Samsung i5700, HTC G1 (android 2.1 eclair), all the way up to Nexus One with Froyo. This keyboard easily matches the iPhone keyboard performance even on resistive screens, and is amazing on pure capacitive screens like on N1. It works pretty nicely, even though its still in the Beta WIP (work in progress) phase.

The Droid X Keyboard features full multi-touch. This is different from the multi-touch currently enabled on 3rd party keyboards-the Droid X has the capability to hold down shift and press a letter to make a capital, ie it can do more than one key stoke at once like a physical keyboard. Pretty nice.

Download APK (no need to root)
2.1 Eclair-based Roms:

Only thing not working is auto-captilization,auto-correct errors. Dictionary works, NOW WITH VIBRATE!! Doesnt seem to work on HTC Hero GSM or CDMA… Works on almost every other device
http://www.mediafire.com/?lumzzhdjnij

2.2 Froyo-based Roms:

All thats not working on eclair + can’t type anywhere it tries to suggest words, like the messaging body where it crashes. Also voice doesnt work.
http://www.mediafire.com/?rmqzyo0ifzk

FUTURE FIXES:
. Froyo hopefully
. Vibrate (I dunno i cannot find the link where they’ve added their stuff)

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