FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

swipe.futo.tech

419 points by futohq 12 hours ago


dhruvbird - 5 minutes ago

Very cool. I'm a big fan of swipe. So much so that a bunch of us a Grammarly re-implemented it using a similar technique about 2 years ago on the Grammarly iOS keyboard, so if you want to experience something similar on iOS, you can head to the app store https://apps.apple.com/us/app/grammarly-ai-keyboard-notes/id... and use the qwerty english keyboard layout to get this neural net version of swipe.

See https://www.grammarly.com/blog/engineering/deep-learning-swi... for more details - it's very similar to the architecture described by the FUTO folks.

One key difference is that the learned model does not decode in a context sensitive manner but does it a word at a time. The main reason is because we wanted to release this soon and wanted the user's personal dictionary (i.e. contact names, etc... to show up correctly when swiped). It would have been nice if we could have followed through with the context sensitive decoding as described by the FUTO folks. It would really help with accuracy when dealing with words like:

1. (food, good, hood) 2. (you, toy, rot) 3. (our, or, it) etc...

(Disclaimer: I am one of the authors of the Grammarly swipe system as described in the linked blog post).

crazygringo - 6 hours ago

I love swiping for speed, because it's usually faster than tapping and easy to do one-handed, but then there are always a bunch of words that are too similar that it can never get right, it doesn't deal well with doubled vs single letters, etc.

So for the longest time, I've wanted a new keyboard layout specifically designed for swiping. In the same way that Dvorak was optimized for ergonomically typing English words, I want a keyboard layout designed to minimize word overlap/ambiguity when swiping.

It doesn't even necessarily have to have 26 keys, e.g. maybe there could be one key overloaded for v/w/x/z (and you long-press it if you ever want to type a single letter). On the other hand, maybe there need to be separate keys for 'e' and 'ee', or a special key for "double the previous letter".

Because I love swiping, but all my problems with it come from the fact that the QWERTY layout is far from ideal for it. I am 100% willing to learn a new layout if anyone will develop an optimal one for English so that swiping has a 99.9% accuracy rate instead of what currently feels more like 90% or 95%.

teiferer - 4 minutes ago

Lots to be desired, unfortunately. I tried 3 different words. It nailed the first 2 but the third was impossible: The word "serverside" is impossible to swipe. I tried 10x, never did it even come close.

kstenerud - an hour ago

What I really want is a swipe model that can tune to multiple languages simultaneously when a keyboard layout can support it (English + German, German + French, etc). I rarely need more than 2 languages simultaneously, but the "switching between 2 languages" point is painful.

blopker - 8 hours ago

I've been using this keyboard on and off for a while now. I've always switched back to gboard, however this update made me convert full time. It's really good.

There are a few issues, like it randomly capitalizes words in the middle of sentences. Also, it doesn't seem to take context into account when suggesting words, so words that clearly wouldn't follow the last word will often show up.

It's not as good as gboard yet, but close enough that I'm going to stick with it.

Note that if you have a more powerful device, you can get larger models for voice and larger dictionaries from their site. They make a noticeable difference.

The only fundamental issue I have with it, they seem to be ideologically opposed to adding a GIF search, which I miss occasionally. https://github.com/futo-org/android-keyboard/issues/293#issu...

popcar2 - 8 hours ago

Awesome. I've been using FUTO keyboard for two years now and it's the best free & private keyboard I found, but swiping has been really bad for all these keyboards which was such a pain because I use swiping a lot.

Nice to see the hour of swiping I did adding to their dataset actually helped. I'm using it now and it feels as good as the Google keyboard.

Edit: It is sending me a little that it keeps swiping "whats" instead of "what's" though, hopefully they fix that later.

HiPhish - 9 hours ago

For anyone wondering: the library uses the GPLv3 (good) while the Android keyboard uses the Futo License (shit).

- https://gitlab.futo.org/keyboard/swipe-library/-/blob/master...

- https://github.com/futo-org/android-keyboard/blob/master/LIC...

farhanhubble - 19 minutes ago

Absolutely cool demo. I used to love this feature in SwiftKey. It still works but after their acquisition by Microsoft they've gone downhill. I've since switched to iOS but would love to try Futo out when it's available for iOS

sholladay - an hour ago

This keyboard seems to ship with a dictionary that includes a lot of curse words. No more ducking around.

smusamashah - 21 minutes ago

Looking at the example videos, specially the VR one, I can't help but think that this gives every word its own unique shape. For example, the word "model" got shape matching infinity symbol.

RandyOrion - an hour ago

I've been using FUTO voice input for several month. It's not perfect as I have to manually do the correction like always. However, it definitely saves me some time and effort. It also helps me to degoogle, starting from gboard.

Apparently this new swipe function is tied to FUTO keyboard. I don't use the FUTO keyboard as there is no support for the language I use intensively. Nevertheless, this line of work deserves more recognition.

tmach32 - 43 minutes ago

For us sad iOS people, what's your favorite swiping keyboard? I just use the stock Apple one because custom keyboards can still be a little buggy (eg not loading occasionally).

utopiah - 28 minutes ago

Ah nice they do have a VR demo https://swipe.futo.tech/vr-swipe-small.mp4 ... now I'm wondering if there is a WASM version so that it can be used in WebXR.

Vingdoloras - 8 hours ago

After experiencing Nintype on iOS many years ago, I can't use any other swipe keyboard anymore. I'm stuck using the stock keyboard for typing, and sometimes (rarely) swiping a word or two when I din't have two hands available. Swiping (with one finger) when holding my phone with both hands just feels unnatural and sluggish. I wish Apple had just bought/sherlocked Nintype and integrated it into the stock keyboard.

prism56 - 9 hours ago

Futo with the new swipe model is the first android keyboard i've used that I don't feel like i'm compromising vs GBoard.

Integrated speak to text, good autocorrect typing, good autocorrect swiping.

functionmouse - 9 hours ago

edit: NOT guaranteed to be free and open! seems to have a confusing license setup. Boooo! Works good though, I'll take it over Gboard.

This is such a massive deal. This is, as far as I can tell, the first useful free and open Swipe model. This paves the way for things like swipe typing on platforms other than iOS and Android, a major pain point to newcomer OSes.

wxw - 27 minutes ago

Apple’s swipe to text is so good that I forget there’s still work to be done in the space. Great stuff FUTO.

gblargg - 7 hours ago

Voice dictation is so much better than GBoard, which I've been using until now. It capitalizes and punctuates sentences without me needing to, and got several sentences perfect without any post-editing needed, and it's all a local model. The one downside is no real-time update, just batch conversion once you're done talking. Looks like they've fixed the swipe backspace and spacebar to not be over-sensitive like it was a year or two ago when I last tried (and allowed some customization).

globular-toast - 7 minutes ago

I used to use SwiftKey, but Microsoft acquired and ruined it years ago. It worked really well. Since then the only one that worked for me is Gboard.

I've had this installed for a while but found the swiping too inaccurate. I'm trying it again now and I reckon it's as good as Gboard now. I've written this comment using it. Nice!

fowlie - 42 minutes ago

Awesome project!! I will migrate off from gboard when support for Norwegian gets better.

Groxx - 2 hours ago

Finally! Usable! Between this and the excellent dictation, it's finally looking good enough that I can probably recommend it to anyone.

Sebguer - 9 hours ago

Great timing given I just installed SwiftKey since Microsoft has started embedding ads and dark pattern redirects to Bing!

jeena - 6 hours ago

I always liked their voice dictation because it's better than Samsungs or Googles while it's on device. It's super fast and puts in punctuation in, etc.

The keyboard on the other hand I never really liked for some reason which I can't even explain clearly. So for the keyboard I've been using https://github.com/HeliBorg/HeliBoard for ever, but it does not have sviping.

I might try FUTO Swipe just to test it.

julianlam - 8 hours ago

As a FUTO keyboard user for about a year I'm quite excited for this!

Their local voice transcription is top notch and proper swipe gestures would be icing on the cake.

Now to fix that issue there tapping "Tuesd" sometimes suggests "Thursday"

sheept - 8 hours ago

It would be nice if there was a swipe typing keyboard that was similar to Chinese/Japanese IMEs where you can swipe out a full phrase and the keyboard can use it to fix short/ambiguous words based on context. Today, when I'm swipe typing sloppily, it can be hard to distinguish between pairs like on/in, of/if/I'd, it's/its, etc

tekacs - 9 hours ago

This is amazing! It's driven me nuts for a very long time that so many mobile keyboards allow totally non-sequitur nonsensical sequence completions.

In particular, if you end up using the voice input mode of it and have trouble with accuracy, I would giving a try to the biggest model that it supports. It's slower (although really not bad at all on my Galaxy Fold), but it's so nice to have it actually be as accurate as it is.

satvikpendem - 10 hours ago

Very cool, I use swipe typing almost exclusively so good to see open models. It just needs to preserve word history for custom words, not sure if it does that.

Humphrey - 2 hours ago

Would love an iOS version! The keyboard landscape on iOS is grim, and gboard hasn't received updates in years.

wolvoleo - 4 hours ago

Sounds good but the big problem I have with futo key board is that it can only do one language at a time. With gboard I can swipe type al 3 languages I speak without having to constantly switch. I wish they could make that.

spicyusername - 9 hours ago

Love swipe typing. Nice to see more keyboards in the space.

t_gamer_kle - 2 hours ago

Oh frabjous day! I've waited YEARS for something like this. THANK YOU FUTO!

ibejoeb - 8 hours ago

I've been using the new swipe for a few days and it's truly excellent.

willconnelly - 5 hours ago

The first two words i tried to type were both "hello" and I got "help" and "hell" as first suggestions. I'm not sure if the web app is using the same algo but that's an immediate ick.

skeledrew - 9 hours ago

I've been using HeliBoard for a while now, but IIRC the swipe library it uses is from Google (have to install it separately to comply with license). Wonder how this stacks up.

ktimespi - 7 hours ago

If this can learn my patterns, that itself is enough. Google Keyboard used to do this, but mysteriously doesn't do it anymore.

madspindel - 9 hours ago

Must say it's a little bit lame that they are boycotting iOS. I will not change phone just to use this app but it would be nice to be able to replace SwiftKey with this.

amelius - 9 hours ago

On the one hand snapping to the nearest English word is useful. On the other hand it will prevent our language from evolving.

nmstoker - 7 hours ago

Is there some sort of swipe data standard? If there were, it feels like getting a few proper OSS projects going might start to shift things in the right direction (assuming they cracked a way to share a bit of anonymized data)

OJFord - 5 hours ago

The demo at least doesn't support tapping, which makes it a nope for me, even if the swiping experience hadn't been ~hank~ ~help~ hello world.

nozzlegear - 10 hours ago

The swipe demo on the website is neat! I wasn't expecting to be able to use it with my mouse.

jawns - 9 hours ago

I'm curious how it compares with Microsoft SwiftKey. Obviously, that's not an open-source app, but it would be an interesting benchmark.

h4kunamata - 4 hours ago

FUTO is terrible!

I run GOS and have tried it, you spend more time deleting works than actually using it.

I was forced to install Google GBoard instead and revoke its network access. Gboard swipe typing works flawlessly, FUTO still an Alpha project.

OsrsNeedsf2P - 10 hours ago

Does anyone know of a FOSS keyboard that supports swiping in Korean? I'm yet to find one

BosunoB - 8 hours ago

I don't really get swiping. It's always going to be quicker and more efficient to type because you can use both hands, right? And you don't have to swipe your finger across the screen?

Still going strong with Fleksy even though you can't even download it anymore.

jacooper - 9 hours ago

If only FUTO supported combined keyboard languages without duplicates. Why would there be two separate de and en layouts when multilingual typing is enabled.

jordand - 9 hours ago

I used the FUTO keyboard for a few months but ditched it as the word suggestions were either odd or random (one example: I'd write 'Jordan' and it would always suggest 'Peterson' as the next word), and I'd got a weirdly passive aggressive prompt saying I should really purchase a license. Went back to the de-Googled Android keyboard in GrapheneOS

vzaliva - 6 hours ago

what languages it support? They only mention "language-agnostic".

stavros - 6 hours ago

I really want to switch to FUTO keyboard but there are a few UX issues that prevent me. For example, SwiftKey lets you swipe left to delete a word, which is very useful, but FUTO doesnt, you have to start from the Backspace button.

Or, SwiftKey will allow you to change a typed word's case by pressing shift, but FUTO just does nothing in that case.

I really hope these get fixed, or I can just issue PRs myself for them.

kayson - 6 hours ago

I've been using it for a while. The insistence of keyboards on having a large bar of autocorrect suggestions taking valuable vertical space annoys me to no end.

I really liked using Fleksy which let you swipe up and down on the keyboard to change autocorrect results, including adding words to your dictionary. I'm still not sure if FUTO even has that option.

functionmouse - 9 hours ago

seems to be really good

oehtXRwMkIs - 9 hours ago

demo seems worse than heliboard

windyan - 2 hours ago

[dead]