this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2024

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Minimum Keyboard Is Dead Dead (lazysoci.al)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

16 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've long been a super fan of Minuum Keyboard. I backed the IndieGoGo campaign and then bought it when it was officially released for Android. It's been my daily driver for 11 years.

Everyone has different wants and needs for a keyboard and I was lucky to find mine met in Minuum.

I had this powerful computer in my pocket and felt that it should compute at all times and make my life easier. The sloppy typing model did that for me. I never understood why people wanted a keyboard to replicate that of a typewriter and take up all that real estate, keyboards were supposed to get out of the way, not take up more room.

I dreamed about the machine learning algorithm improving to the point that I would never ever need to open it up to full mode, but when they should've been making improvements in that regard, they started trying to make emoji keyboards.

Unfortunately they couldn't make the company profitable in a way that could sustain them and pay the backers and it fell into disrepair.

Still I persisted. The unparalleled typing speed and efficiency was out of this world and that's all I wanted. An experience designed for mobile that excelled at mobile.

Unfortunately with Android 15 and no update since 2017 I believe, it's now time to say goodbye. The bottom row is inaccessible in the latest iteration of Android.

There was some brief hope last year when one of the developers promised an update should they get time to clean up the code, but it never came to fruition.

The downfall of Minuum was that people prefer familiarity and that sucks as it was a glimpse of the future or what the future could be.

Burn the pyre!

End the stream Dave!

all 17 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] drunk_spelunk 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm sad that I'm first hearing about this keyboard now when it's far too late to enjoy. That keyboard looks awesome. Thanks for sharing.

I can't put in into words without typing an essay, but all my dreams and excitement for devices are pretty much dead. There was a time when operating systems and apps and keyboards were exciting; they were trying new things and throwing stuff out there. Most of it wasn't perfect but it let you set your phone up in your own way. I used to play around with launchers and custom roms. Now I've given up. So much is Apple-fied now.

My favorite keyboard was the original Swype that came with the first galaxy phones. It just felt like an intelligent step forward.

RIP minuum keyboard

[–] calamitycastle 10 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I still miss Swype; I'm not aware of any other board that allows gesture cut copy and paste in quite the same way. Also the capitalisation was really easy. I'm using openboard now and it's fine but lacking that premium feature set

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Check FUTO keyboard, privacy focused with a bunch of neat features and the devs listen to suggestions

[–] calamitycastle 3 points 2 months ago

OK I'm using it to type this. Seems quite good! Thanks for the rec

[–] calamitycastle 3 points 2 months ago

I'll give it a go, thanks!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Omh I just downloaded it that right now, indeed it's a really good keyboard, I toyed this without watching or editing the result so if there are some typos I left in this comment

[–] jmcollis 1 points 2 months ago

I hadn't seen this one before. It looks promising.

[–] ikidd 1 points 2 months ago

I tried it and while I like a lot about the local voice transcription, keyboard layout, etc., the autocorrect was so bad I had to change back to Heliboard.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Also check out 8vim

https://github.com/8VIM/8VIM

Probably not exactly what you are looking for but 8vim is really polished and it doesn't get enough attention as a swiping keyboard. I don't need autocorrect with it and it is easy to learn the layout of.

[–] calamitycastle 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Oof thanks for the recommend. I will have to keep that one in the back pocket for a rainy day I think. Looks like quite a steep learning curve!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

it is different but very simple

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

There was an update this February according to apkmirror. But it's delisted from Google play

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Between Minuum, Nintype and Keymonk, novelty keyboard makers really need to start open sourcing their abandoned products!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Maaan, I remember the original Indigogo video that had the jacked up sound levels, so it sounded like the founder said his name was "Will Womwom".

But the tech was very cool, and I'm a little sad that it's been abandoned.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I love Minuum and have been using it for years until ... 2015ish. I moved back to my country and they keyboard doesn't support non-latin writing is not convenient for me, I would have to switch keyboards when chatting with different people.