- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
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- [email protected]
Before we start, let’s be clear. I am not a developer. I am not selling anything. This is merely just an idea based on my own insights as a creative writer. I would love to have different opinions on this one.
Problem: It’s really inconvenient to write long-form content on a smartphone. When the phone is in portrait mode, there’s enough room to see all the text, but the keyboard is too tiny for extended writing sessions resulting in fatigue. When you turn the smartphone to landscape mode, two problems arise: the keyboard takes up two-thirds of the screen, making it hard to see what you’re typing, and reaching the keys in the middle of the keyboard becomes difficult. Thumb mode isn’t a satisfactory solution either, as it leaves a sad stupid wasted space in the middle of the split keyboard.
When writing on a smartphone, screen real estate is precious. Tablets offer a split thumb floating keyboard mode, but they are bulky, heavy, and not comfortable for long-term typing. Carrying a tablet everywhere isn’t practical.
What’s available: I’ve tried a dozen writing apps (even Joe’s Termux with its high-condensed text) combined with several Android keyboards, but none come close to the experience of having a real keyboard (I prefer ortholinear split keyboards btw) attached to a smartphone for travel.
So, how can we fix the typing experience on a phone? Check these mockups.
Solution: The ideal solution would be to have a split keyboard that occupies the two top sides of the screen, with the text editor displayed in the middle. Full-screen mode to get rid of the status bar would be a plus. You would hold your phone like a Steam Deck or, even better, like the Nokia N-Gage (I know that there have been phones closer to what I’m describing, but the N-Gage is the most well-known form factor).
Additional benefits: This layout would be more comfortable to hold, similar to how you hold your phone when playing PUBG. Your index fingers would rest on the phone, and the bottom corners of the phone would fit into the palms’ cavity. Achieving this would be possible since the keyboard would be positioned closer toward the top corners of the phone (remember, the phone is in landscape mode).
Some other thoughts: Perhaps combining a keyboard with a text editor is excessive. It’s possible that a new type of keyboard that splits and allows you to view the text you’re typing in the middle would suffice. However, it’s uncertain whether this would work with every app.
**Disclaimer: **Please note that the following mockups provided are intended solely for illustrative purposes to convey the concept and potential user experience.
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I would suggest checking out foldable Bluetooth physical keyboards. There are some that fold down not much bigger than the size of the phone. Gives tactile feedback, and saves a lot of screen real estate.
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Modern phones are kind of an 80% solution. The UI conventions that have evolved work well enough for most use cases that they’ve become ubiquitous. There will always be niche situations like this that they won’t cover. The mockups look cool and remind me of the old Nokia “texting” phones like the 5510, 6800 and E70. As much as I love Nokia’s “eh, let’s see if this works” attitude, that design didn’t catch on when they tried it, either. If you already have a bluetooth keyboard that you like, just use that. Anybody else that wants to write long form on a phone will do the same.
I don’t think it would help much on a touch screen. The main problem with touch screen is the lack of feel of the buttons, so unless using a very good swiping kb, you need to keep looking at the buttons quite often, and overlall it’s just more tiring. With a split board you just need to look at three places instead of two.
Might be better for someone with specific preferences though.
Interesting. Seems like it world allow for more dedicated keyboard space and thusly bigger burtons. I’d give it a try.
Not sure how broad the appeal would be though.
I have a galaxy fold and can confirm when in landscape with the entire bottom half as a split keyboard and bigger buttons, it feels incredible to type on ( even portrait feels great).
I know its not the broadest of appeals but as someone who write lengthy work emails on my phone it’s a feature I don’t think I will ever be able to live without now. I mention this because when I got the phone I had never even thought about it, and now it’s one of my favourite features of it, so while people may not expect to like it, they may try it “just to see” and be hooked.
I’ve done personal research into this, and my conclusion is sadly goes against what you’re talking about here.
Unfortunately to have an enjoyable, reliable, or good input experience whether its a keyboard or a controller input, requires a tactile feedback. The lack of tactility and feedback from a phones smooth glass screen makes this concept dead in the water.
Let alone trying to get developers to support this feature and ensure their app supports the form factor. See folding phones for reference on developer support of non standard layouts.
Add to that the fact that you need 2 functional hands to require using it.
Honestly the best input experience I had on a mobile device was a stylus for my iPad and Android eReader. Makes taking notes simple and I can use OCR to try and turn it into text if I need it.
Given that most smartphones are not more than twice as tall as they are wide, wouldn’t having it in the layout you describe leave the same amount of horizontal screen space for the keyboard anyway?
Try to put the app screenshot full screen on your phone and tell me what you think.
I’ve done so and I think my point still stands in terms of the size of the keys. I do agree that having the text show in the middle instead of a blank space for the keyboard is much better than having the text stretched out on the top half of the screen. I personally have not done much if any typing on a split keyboard like that, so I don’t know how comfortable it would be, but I do like your idea of having a touch pad included.
Seems like a good attempt. I’d try it :)
The steam controller / steam deck has a split virtual keyboard where you do the left side with your left thumb and right side with your right.
I saw this app by one of the lemmy devs. It’s an interesting concept and if you’re on Android you can install it. See here
I tried that one. Swiping for letters makes it slow. And there is quite a learning curve to it.
I’d still prefer keyboards that let’s you swipe for whole words over that.
Yeah definitely not my cup of tea either. Really hard to break away from qwerty haha
I tried to write a few chapters on my phone, and this would be pretty great for that use case. I would use it for sure. Not sure about broad appeal or anything else for that matter, but I’d try it
Whoah! That’s a really neat concept! I approached this problem by nabbing myself a Surface Duo so I could have an entire second screen dedicated to a virtual keyboard. It’s still kind of difficult to type long form content, so I could see this being very helpful for my daily driver single screen phone.
I like the concept, however I would need some time to adjust my writing skill, as I usually write only with one hand, but I think in the long run you would be able to write faster and more comfortably. GG
I still miss my physical keyboard phone if swipe didn’t exist I’d be buying a bluetooth one
I think it’s a good idea. It would take a bit getting used to having to look at both sides of the screen while I type, but I’d definitely give it a shot. Autocomplete is really useful when I write out longer blocks of text, but it would be nice not to have to use it so much.
