Wednesday 7 May 2014

SYNAPSE CIRCUIT ANDROID KEYBOARDS

Above: The beautiful Kii used on a tablet.
Above: Emoji Keyboard - Emoticons (KK) displaying the Android emoticons.
SYNAPSE CIRCUIT
ANDROID KEYBOARDS

Good afternoon, Synapse Circuit Readers. It’s so wonderful to see you! I hope today finds you in the best of health and long may you continue to be tip top!

If you’re an Android user I am sure that you appreciate the fact that you can personalize your handset until your heart is content. One of best things to ever happen to Android was the Voice Typing going offline...

#Android #Personalization #Keyboards #Emoji #Emoticons

WHAT’S YOUR TYPE?
When I got my Galaxy S I was very impressed by the Swype keyboard; it worked really well (once I got the hang of it) and made typing very easy through gesture swiping. Then I tried other keyboards such as SwiftKey which was alright but I didn’t feel too comfortable with it wanting to learn how I write on my social networks, etc. I found it intrusive.

Google has since updated its keyboard much to the satisfaction of many. However, I must admit that I do appreciate the emojis! If you use Facebook on a daily basis being able to use emojis is a nice touch – no pun intended. I don’t know why Google didn’t include emojis on its keyboard but I am so glad that others have.

Here are two of my favourite keyboards...

KII
This is a pretty decent keyboard! What I enjoy about Kii is the gesture input and that it is customizable through its built-in editor whereby one can change the colours of the keypads (I believe that this is in the paid version) and there are a good amount of themes for it. I use the futuristic looking Swift Beta GO keyboard skin and because Kii is compatible with the GO Keyboard there are many more themes to be had! Hurrah!

I also appreciate that I can choose to have the number keypads on the top row thus saving me from having to hit the number / symbols key.

And, yes, the emjois are there thanks to the Handcent Emoji Plugin meant for the Handcent SMS app that I don’t use due to the free messaging apps that I enjoy so much! In addition you have the symbol smilies, symbols as found on a QWERTY keyboard in the form of Windings and text faces. It’s brilliant and the paid version is definitely worth it!

I love that I can swipe a symbol from the gesture of swiping down onto a letter downwards until the symbol appears which saves me from having to tap the number / symbol key or the dedicated symbol key. Great stuff!

NIGGLES
There are some niggles that can annoy... You’ve gesture typed a word and you then go on to the next word and the previous word persists. And because you can’t do a loop on a little that has two consecutive same letters it makes such words harder to gesture input. Gesture typing “impossible” can be exactly that! I have to break the swipe for a tap! Aside from those niggles it’s pretty good.

I like Kii a lot for the non-phablet handset.

Here’s my other keyboard choice...

Emoji Keyboard – Emoticons (KK)
For phablets I recommend the Emoji Keyboard – Emoticons (KK) as it closely resembles the official Google keyboard with the added emojis.

It’s very similar to Kii but with the Emoji Keyboard only a few of the emojis work; it’s not a disaster by any means. Kii works by allowing the iOS6 emoji to be used on the Android device and therefore all the emojis work just fine. Whereas Emoji Keyboard uses Android emojis!

Like Kii the Emoji Keyboard can make use of custom themes but it is not as extensive. However, the themes available are quite good. I would like more themes further down the line. Again, I have the option to have the number keys positioned on the top row.

And the keyboard can be compacted to be positioned to either left, right or a layout for the thumbs that sees the keyboard split into left and right parts. Oh, the keyboard can be resized too!

NIGGLES
Well, I noticed that when the number / symbol key was depressed access to the numbers and symbols wasn’t granted straightaway and it took several taps before I could get to them. I sent an email to developer, David F and within hours an update that fixed the problem was available for me and all to download. After the download it has been just fine!

Another thing is that the English dictionary is American and not UK or Canadian. But there are many different dictionaries available many languages!

Other than that I am really enjoying using the Emoji Keyboard!

I believe that there will be more themes available in due course plus a bit of an overhaul in the user interface. For example I would like to swipe down on a letter containing a symbol and have the symbol appear instead of the letter like the Kii!

CONCLUSION
I would recommend those fine keyboards that are very, very functional as well as good looking!



LINKS:-

KII

Handcent Emoji Plugin


&

Emoji Keyboard - Emoticons (KK)


THANKS FOR READING...
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