I made a keyboard because I needed one and nothing on Android was built for blind users. I put it on GitHub because someone else might need one. Then I woke up this morning and Mastodon had eaten it.

New blog post — what overnight virality actually looks like from the inside, the TalkBack problem nobody else bothered solving, Flexy, and why I spent the day building instead of panicking.

https://fireborn.mataroa.blog/blog/i-made-a-keyboard-nobody-asked-for-my-experience-making-taptype/

#TapType #Android #Accessibility #BlindTech

TapType is out. It's a keyboard for blind Android users.
There are no visible keys. You tap where QWERTY keys would be from muscle memory, and a spatial prediction algorithm figures out what you meant. It scores nearby keys using a Gaussian proximity model and runs a beam search against an 80,000 word dictionary. You don't need to be precise. That's the whole point.
Swipe right to commit a word. Swipe down or up to cycle through suggestions. Swipe left to delete. It learns what words you use most and ranks them higher over time, and you can add your own words to a personal dictionary.
Every letter has its own unique sound, from Andre Louis's keyboard sound recordings, so you can learn to identify keys by ear without relying on speech. Each swipe direction has a distinct sound too. TTS is there when you want it, adjustable speed, and you can turn it off entirely if you prefer sounds only.
It has emoji search with skin tone selection and favourites, a number pad mode, an upper case mode, and full punctuation support with a customizable quick list. Two-finger gestures handle things like send, close keyboard, switch keyboard, and voice input.
Everything works with TalkBack. I built this because FlickType was a fantastic keyboard for blind iOS users and then it was gone. Nothing like it existed on Android, so I made one.
It's free, no ads, no tracking, no metrics. I'm not evil.

Edit: Now on 2.0 with multiple languages supported.

If you find TapType useful, consider supporting its development:
https://paypal.me/aaronhewitt
https://github.com/sponsors/aaron-gh
https://liberapay.com/fireborn/

Download: https://github.com/aaron-gh/taptype-releases/releases/latest
#TapType #Accessibility #A11y #Android #Blind #VisuallyImpaired #TalkBack #Keyboard #AssistiveTech

The Fediverse in a nutshell.

#Fediverse #covid #corvid #crow #meme #trans

When I first watched War Games (1983) I thought "wow, so weird, not only they had terrible password management, but their test 'AI' system was directly linked to the prod".

Ha-ha.