this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2026
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There are many bad stereotypes about Android, and Samsung isn't helping by shipping such a bad keyboard to millions of Android users.

top 37 comments
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[–] db2@lemmy.world 23 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Hate the inconsistent autocorrect but aside from that, I use it on every phone I have and it’s really damn good

[–] JayGray91@piefed.social 13 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (3 children)

Also I want to highlight that heliboard devs together with NLNet are running an opt-in program to collect gesture typing data to make an open source library to further divorce from having to use closed source Google gesture library

https://nlnet.nl/project/GestureTyping/

Edit: p.s. if you somehow used to use this nifty iOS/android keyboard called nintype a decade ago where you can feature type using two fingers, heliboard also can do it. It's awesome.

[–] dipcart@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I'm not super tech literate. How do I go about joining that? I can't seem to find the option to turn on swipe typing or the sharing of said data.

Thanks!

[–] leftascenter@jlai.lu 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Turning swipe on is explained here (called glide typing)

https://github.com/HeliBorg/HeliBoard

Doing the training data is explained in the app after install as far as I remember

[–] JayGray91@piefed.social 1 points 2 days ago

If you want to access the data gathering after the explanation, go to Settings > Gesture Data Gathering

@dipcart@lemmy.world

[–] sem@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Is there any way to use Heliboard with voice to text recognition?

[–] leftascenter@jlai.lu 2 points 3 days ago

Yes.

The show microphone is in prefs/toolbar / select toolbar keys OR pinned toolbar keys.

[–] JayGray91@piefed.social 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I don't personally use it but I see there's an option for it

[–] sem@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Where do you see the option?

[–] JayGray91@piefed.social 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Go to Settings > Toolbar > Select Toolbar Keys > toggle on voice input

And since I turned it on out of curiosity I tried it. And it just uses Google voice input 😐

[–] sem@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Thanks, it's a little hidden. I also had to configure the toolbar to always appear.

I also have the problem where it defaults to Google voice input and I can't see how to change it.

https://github.com/HeliBorg/HeliBoard/issues/988

https://github.com/HeliBorg/HeliBoard/issues/1547

I've been contributing. I use swipe text all the time and I love that I get to help with his project.

[–] LostWanderer@fedia.io 2 points 3 days ago

I don't think the default keyboard is all that bad after using the Apple default keyboard for over a year! I honestly find the default Samsung keyboard to be more accurate with autocorrect choices and spellings. I just hate the fact their LLM button cannot be removed from the keyboard layout, as all other buttons are editable.

I ended up using Typewise which is a fairly competent keyboard that you can set to be offline or without the smelly OpenAI integration (I missed that detail about them).

[–] 01011@monero.town 9 points 4 days ago

It's worse in the States where people seem to think that Samsung = Android.

[–] artyom@piefed.social 12 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Someone has never used an iPhone keyboard.

[–] PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

My last phone was an iPhone 13. One of the reasons I wanted to switch was because of how bad the keyboard was. Switching to gboard on iOS doesn't really help. It's a reskinned iOS keyboard so there's latency and lag issues.

[–] artyom@piefed.social 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I bought one and used it for 3 months and then had to ditch it. The keyboard was a big reason. So bad. Unbelievable that they haven't fixed it...

[–] PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 days ago

I kept mine for 4 years and honestly enjoyed it with the exception of the keyboard, the lack of FOSS apps, and the way the filesystem works. Switching to gboard afterwards and making the keys even bigger was amazing on an android.

[–] hornedfiend@piefed.social 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

i recently went from an iPhone 12 Pro to a Fairphone 6, because reasons. However, good god... The iphone keyboard is atrocious. For anything other than English, it's like Apple think languages don't have words in them.

Worst experience I've ever had with a soft keyboard was iphone's. Never again.

Edit: words.

[–] cholesterol@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

What's wrong with it? Just curious.

[–] artyom@piefed.social 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Too small and not resizeable. No number row and no long-press layer, so you have to constantly switch between layers. Bad swipe detection. No customization. Etc.

These are all basic features Android keyboards had very early on.

[–] percent@infosec.pub 6 points 5 days ago (2 children)

I stopped using Samsung many years ago because despite them being great at hardware, they suck at software.

I had to send 3 phones in a row back to them because apparently they can't even plug the screen into the motherboard properly. That's why I gave up on them.

[–] tb_@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Apps notwithstanding; they did some great things to move the industry forward with OneUI. I still prefer it over the more native google Android on my Fairphone 6.
Also the samsung gallery app is amazing. Automatic tagging, great editing tools, all native to the phone without any google cloud necessary. Samsung Notes is solid. Migrating from one phone to another transferred all apps and their settings too, even F-droid ones, rather than having the play store simply redownload them.

But, despite all that, there was a reason I made the switch to Fairphone. Fuck samsung and their overall business practices.

[–] tb_@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

Also One Hand Operation+ and some of the other Good Lock apps.
Quick Cursor has been an okay replacement for OHO+

Also modes/routines. Tasker is not the same.

google does have a setting to automatically turn my WiFi on when I come home, but not off when I leave! samsung did.

Again, I do not regret making the switch. But damn, samsung does so much more than google Android.

[–] MrQuallzin@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

I've been using SwiftKey since before Microslop bought them, I think way back to my Nexus 7 tablet. It's... enshitefied in some ways with extra bloat, but I'm way too used to it at this point and I do love it's customization options.

[–] biscuit@lemdro.id 3 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Google's Emoji Kitchen feature has me locked in to Gboard unfortunately

[–] LostWanderer@fedia.io 1 points 3 days ago

To be fair, the Emoji Kitchen is pretty cool, Samsung's combined emoji feature isn't bad...Not as creative though as it could be, it's something they need to work on in order to foster better competition.

[–] sem@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 points 4 days ago

...kitchen?

Nani???

[–] Overspark@piefed.social 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

If you're using a default keyboard on almost any mobile device you're only hurting yourself. The Google one is annoyingly good, but every other keyboard I've encountered from mobile manufacturers (including Apple) is just terrible.

[–] blujan@sopuli.xyz 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

GBoard is so good, I have tried others but nothing comes close.

[–] tb_@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

No other keyboard does the backspace swipe like gboard does. It is the reason I get hung up on whatever else I try.

It's funny to me how different everyone is. I HATE that feature in Gboard. Maybe cause I suck at picking my finger all the way up during swipe texting 🀣

[–] cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The Samsung keyboard is bad? I remember when it had a number row and we were all just like "whoa, this is what we asked for." I just use Gboard on mine (S10). If it ain't broke don't fix it.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The autocorrect is atrocious

On Samsung? Or iPhone? Because on iPhone, the autocorrect is terrible and you can't really fix it. On Samsung, you can just get Gboard.