FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

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ffutohq about 4 hours ago 44 commentsRead Article on swipe.futo.tech

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Discussion Sentiment

70% Positive

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Discussion (44 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

popcar2•41 minutes 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.

blopker•44 minutes 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...

prism56•about 1 hour 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.

HiPhish•about 2 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...

cge•about 2 hours ago

To add to the license complexity, the model uses another FUTO-written license, though it at least does not seem as bad as the license for the keyboard:

https://huggingface.co/futo-org/futo-swipe/blob/main/LICENSE...

rkagerer•about 1 hour ago

What's particularly objectionable about the Futo License?

Is it this part?

you may not remove or obscure any functionality in the software related to payment to the Licensor in any copy you distribute to others.

mzajc•about 1 hour ago

The clause you cited as well as the "Termination" section and the non-commercial restriction make it a non-free license. Besides the direct issues with that, it also means all software covered by this license is unsuitable for FOSS-only distributions like Debian or F-Droid. It's not entirely clear to me if the license is copyleft; derivative works have similar problems if so.

As an aside, Eron Wolf, the billionaire behind FUTO, has some rather... out of touch views[0] on the meaning of open source, and seems very committed to diluting the term to mean something closer source-available by removing the most of the rights granted (as defined by FSF, OSI, DFSG and others).

[0]: https://gitlab.futo.org/eron/public/-/wikis/Thoughts-on-Open... - please keep in mind that the RMS quote at the top is taken out of context; he is arguing for more freedom, not less

nine_k•about 1 hour ago

> shit

It's just a commercial license with very mild terms.

functionmouse•about 1 hour 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.

julianlam•27 minutes 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"

Sebguer•about 2 hours ago

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

ericol•about 1 hour ago

Assuming you mean uninstall, yeah I did the same because of that.

I wasn getting a constant panel from them regarding using the backup feature, that will just keep re appearing.

It was so bad I even moved to GBoard. Not the same, but I'm getting used to.

speedgoose•about 1 hour ago

You meant uninstalled, right ?

It’s unfortunate that the Bing team at Microsoft has so much power. They destroy products for the glory of Bing, and some money. Perhaps it’s about the money. But I feel like Microsoft doesn’t have to make a lot of money on everything they do.

skeledrew•about 1 hour ago

Has to be. I jumped from SwiftKey the moment I heard Microsoft bought it, back in '14 IIRC.

Vingdoloras•38 minutes 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.

PlotCitizen•7 minutes ago

Omg I was using that too! I was actually wondering whether FUTO had any features that supported typing one word with multiple concurrent (or not) swipes. I guess it does not but dang what a blast from the past. I had forgotten the app name too! Was using it since before Apple started actually allowing third party keyboards officially

sheept•34 minutes 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

amelius•about 1 hour ago

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

sheept•37 minutes ago

I can't speak for this keyboard, but at least on Gboard, if you type out a word a few times, it'll be stored in its suggestions dictionary and you'll be able to swipe type it.

ibejoeb•35 minutes ago

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

skeledrew•about 1 hour 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.

spicyusername•about 1 hour ago

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

BosunoB•25 minutes 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.

xp84•17 minutes ago

Sometimes you have one hand full. When my kids were small, especially, I REALLY benefited from swipe typing. I still often use it when I am holding something in one hand.

madspindel•about 2 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.

zem•about 1 hour ago

I'm pretty sure there is no way for them to supply an ios version without having to go through some sort of apple approval process. hardly boycotting to say that you're not about to put up with that crap.

eikenberry•about 1 hour ago

Don't they have to go through a Google approval process for (official) Android? I'm not sure I see this as a big win unless they are strictly supporting GrapheneOS and other de-Googled Androids.

zem•about 1 hour ago

they do, but it's on fdroid too - at that point the play store is simply a nice to have. if google does anything they don't like they can just say okay and keep publishing on fdroid, they have not lost whatever efforts they have invested into android. apple has absolutely no way to just publish an app and let people install it, which at least to my mind delegitimises them as a viable platform. I'm pretty sure if I made open source mobile apps they would be android only, people would be free to take the source and release an ios version under different branding.

exabyte•about 2 hours ago

true... there are many better reasons to leave iOS than for a keyboard

mft_•about 1 hour ago

I assume it would be feasible for someone else to write an iOS keyboard relying on this model?

eikenberry•about 1 hour ago

Where did they say they were boycotting iOS?

smlacy•about 2 hours ago

boycotting?

tekacs•about 2 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.

prism56•about 2 hours ago

I settled on the middle model.

satvikpendem•about 2 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.

nozzlegear•about 2 hours ago

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

jawns•about 2 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.

Mashimo•about 1 hour ago

I'm also a heavy SwiftKey user, but donated some money to futo last year in hopes they improve the keyboard.

SwiftKey got annoying with pushing Ai image Gen and sometimes pop-ups.

OsrsNeedsf2P•about 2 hours ago

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

jacooper•about 2 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•about 1 hour 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

functionmouse•about 1 hour ago

seems to be really good

oehtXRwMkIs•about 2 hours ago

demo seems worse than heliboard

prism56•about 2 hours ago

I've used both extensively and it's a fair bit better, but was significantly worse preupdate