[norswap]

See MessagEase for a similar keyboard (not programmer-focused) with less keys but letting you use the swiping motion to type ordinary — great for fat-fingered people.

[Ginguin]

MessagEase has been my go-to for years. I swapped this year to thumb-key when MessagEase went to a subscription.

I love the ability to quickly copy, paste, select-all, type special characters, etc., all without having to do anything complicated. It took me a little bit of time to get used to the layout, but now I type exactly what I want, as I want it, without any auto-correct or automation needed. I make few errors and love the whole way of doing it. QWERTY makes very little sense on such a small screen, but it's what people know.

[Nullabillity]

I'd call MessagEase-style keyboards good for programming too - no (need for) autocorrect, and the extra room lets you squeeze in most symbols and modifiers.

[CarVac]

Or Thumb-key, an open-source take on that.

[rahimnathwani]

How long does it take to learn https://github.com/dessalines/thumb-key ?

Is it like retraining yourself to use Dvorak? Or more like learning the Palm strokes?

[norswap]

Oh that looks cool! I was really hoping it would have better emoji support than MessagEase as that is the one think I miss (the ability to search for emoji by name) but alas no.

[IIsi50MHz]

Thumb-key also has many alternate layouts, including clones of MessageEase layouts. However, MessageEase layouts are easier to edit: directly on device, instead of via pull-request.

[Nullabillity]

I'd argue FlickBoard is closer, but I'm probably very biased!

[kqr]

In a similar category we find also GKOS (uses chording to get the corner symbols) and I will always have a soft spot for KeyBee.

https://entropicthoughts.com/rethinking-text-input-on-touchs...

[ChadNauseam]

I've learned MessageEase, and it's great for that feeling of having a direct connection to what you're typing (no mistakes, and no annoying autocorrect messing you up), but I always found it slower than swipe-typing

[zimpenfish]

See also FITALY[1] which was amazing on the Pocket PCs but has sadly (criminally) not made it to being an iOS keyboard.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FITALY

[rgreekguy]

Generally I feel keyboards on iOS are almost non-existent, especially combined with App Store's (lack of) discoverability. A simple search for keyboard brings up only GBoard and Microsoft's. And emoji and Unicode "fancy characters" keyboards. The only new keyboard I found today, thanks to this thread is called "AEI Keyboard".

I actually want to get around making something customisable. A keyboard that you will put whatever keys you want, wherever you want. iPhone is too small for a comfortable keyboard, otherwise.