00:00Hello and welcome back to another exciting edition of TechConnect and today
00:04we're going to be looking at a little keyboard called Flowtype available for
00:08the iPhone. Now Corey you had to use this recently. From what I understand you
00:12were being chased by a raven. Yes. Please put it in the comments if you
00:15understand that reference. And your voice was not working. What happened? What
00:19happened to your voice? Nevermore. It was nevermore? Have you been saying nevermore
00:23too many times? Your voice was too hoarse? Yep I went hoarse and lost my voice. Yes
00:27indeed. And we all know that typing with a regular iPhone keyboard is a very slow
00:30and laborious affair but luckily you had Flowtype on your iPhone and it allowed
00:35you to send me a help message and I came out to your rescue. Now for those who
00:40have used in the past Flexi, that was an old keyboard that you could get, this is
00:43kind of a reinterpretation, a reimagining, a modern version of that type of typing.
00:48So Corey is it any good? Did it allow you to send a message in time for me to save
00:53you from the raven? Well everybody stick around and let's find out.
01:07As Luke mentioned this is sort of a reimagination of the Flexi app. Now first
01:12and foremost this is in beta right now so you can't get it from the app store but
01:17we will have a link down in the video description and probably a pinned comment
01:21as well. That'll have a link and if you have TestFlight already installed on your
01:26phone then you'll go right into TestFlight and you're able to download this
01:29app. So go ahead and do it. It's an open beta right now. So once you have the app
01:34installed and you kind of go through the little introduction you are ready to use
01:38the Flowtype app. Now it's going to show up pretty much in any time a keyboard
01:44pops up. So if you are familiar with switching keyboards then it'll be very easy
01:50for you otherwise let's do it now. I've got a my messages app open right here. I'm
01:56going to type you a message Luke. I have some nice things to say to you. But when
02:00the first time you launch the app here I just have the standard keyboard is
02:05popping up. So if I go down in the bottom left corner I should be able to
02:09find my button to change the keyboard and I should hear that my next keyboard
02:13is the Flowtype keyboard. There we go. All right so now my Flowtype app is is now the
02:22the dedicated keyboard and if you the way this basically works is you are just
02:28going to touch the screen where you kind of think the letters are. So we're not
02:34going to actually touch and hold and find the letter. We're just going to tap the
02:38screen in the area where we think the key is and then once we've typed our word we're
02:44going to swipe to the right and we're going to hear what the predicted word is. If that's
02:49the word you want then you just continue going on typing. If it's not the word you
02:53want and we'll probably see that as I type a little message to Luke then you're
02:58going to go ahead and swipe down to hear other words or other options it's
03:04giving you. So let's try it we're going to type to Luke we're going to say hello how
03:08are you doing today? Oh doing good thanks. Well I'm not actually asking you right now
03:12I'll like that answered in just a moment but you're going to see that we're not
03:16going to end in a period that's going to we're going to check that out in here in
03:19just a moment. Does anybody ending and ending a period with a text message? I
03:23always do. Oh fancy boy. If anybody who's watching uses punctuation in
03:29their text messages please let us know down below. There you go full stop. All right
03:33here we go. You can let us know by leaving a message in the comments with no
03:37punctuation in it. That'll be the way to do it. All right so I'm going to go ahead and
03:40type my message and I'm going to type hello. Swipe right. Hello. Aha that one
03:46worked perfect so I can just keep on typing. Yep. So hello. How. How. Are. Are. You. You. Today.
03:57First. Nope so I'm going to swipe down. Today. There we go. Now if I swipe right again it'll
04:02put a period. Period. But if I don't want a period I'm going to swipe down for other
04:07punctuation so let's see if we can find question mark. Cover. Question mark. There we go. So now
04:12I have my message all typed out ready to go. I have to say that was very fast. Yeah it
04:17worked
04:17out well in this case it worked in the you know I only the last word needed to be fixed
04:22but you can
04:23really kind of swipe down. Now let me show you though if you've made a mistake how you would
04:29delete things because there's a couple of other gestures you should know about. First before I
04:35send the message though I want to make sure it's correct. So if I do a four finger tap down
04:40on the
04:40keyboard. Hello. How are you today? It goes ahead and speaks back what your whole edit box said. So
04:47that's really cool. The other thing to know for gestures too is if I tap the keyboard area with
04:53two fingers I can switch between letters and a keypad which is numbers. Keypad. So now I'm showing
05:00numbers on the screen and that's just a standard phone keypad. If I do two finger tap again I switch
05:07back to the letters. Now some of this can be changed in the actual settings of the Flowtype app. There
05:14are
05:14options to determine not only does it teach you some of these gestures but there's some settings you can
05:20change to maybe make it behave in the way that you'd like to. Now I did mention if you wanted
05:26to
05:26delete something. Swiping to the left will go ahead and delete the last thing you did. So the last thing
05:32we did was a question mark. So if I swipe left it should get rid of that question mark. And
05:37it repeats
05:38what it deleted. So swipe left again. Now we know that we've gotten rid of both the question mark
05:44and today. Last thing really quick to show with the Flowtype keyboard is if you want to actually move
05:52around that edit field. You can use the rotor gesture to a certain degree if you're familiar with the
05:59voiceover rotor gesture. We're going to take those two fingers and go ahead and move the rotor. So I'll go
06:06ahead and do that. Characters. And it said characters. Now you're used to swiping up and down with one finger.
06:12I am.
06:12But it won't work because obviously the swiping up and down with one finger is tied to choosing those
06:19predicted words. So instead we're going to do a two finger swipe right or a two finger swipe left.
06:25So I'm going to go to the left because I know I'm at the end of the sentence.
06:28U space E R A space W.
06:32And you can see I was now moving by character within this edit field. If I did the rotor gesture
06:38again I
06:39could go to words and again just use that two finger swipe left and right. So very fast it
06:45worked. But now we got to do stick with us because the next segment we're going to do a quick
06:49little
06:49test to see is it faster than just typing on the normal keyboard. So stick with us. Let's see what
06:55happens.
06:59All right Corey. So we are all ready for our very scientific and serious test here. And I have a
07:05stopwatch on my phone. Okay. And we're going to count to the millisecond. I'm really nervous.
07:12This is all on you. Well here's a question Corey. Is this on you or is it on the keyboard?
07:17Well that's a good question. Obviously both ways even if you're using the flow type app you
07:23do need to know where the keys are. You do. Yes. Or you could just tap around and see how
07:29long it
07:29takes you to get the word that you're on. Might not be the best idea though. All right. Well we're
07:35doing the regular keyboard first. Okay. You have a message in mind. You're going to use the same
07:39message for both. I will say it out loud so everyone knows what I'm typing. Okay. So I am going
07:43to be
07:44typing summer is a great time to grill. Okay. I'm going to grill tonight. Okay. Excellent. So summer is a
07:51great time to grill is our challenge. We're starting with a regular keyboard. On the count
07:54of three, I'm going to say three, two, one, go. That will be your cue. Now really quickly
08:00though. So everybody knows I do have my keyboard set to, I forget what it, oh touch, touch typing.
08:07I use the one where you just need to find the letter and lift it. It automatically types it.
08:12Which makes it a bit quicker because you don't have to do the split tap or double tap. So I
08:16just
08:16wanted to make it clear. That is the type of typing. The type of typing. Yes. Uh, Corey,
08:21I will say you do have a word already in your edit field there. So if you could please clear
08:24it out for the purposes of our time. Thank you. All right. Very good. Go on now. Okay. Please
08:29give us the phrase again that we're going to be typing. Summer is a great time to grill. Period.
08:34Oh, period as well. All right. Here we go. On the count of three, two, one, go.
08:40Oh, cap s, cap s, cap u, u, m, m, m, m, e, r, r, space, i, i, s, space,
08:47a, a, v, v, a,
08:49delete v, space, space, y, t, g, g, t, r, r, e, e, a, t, space, y, t, t, i,
08:57i, m, e,
08:58Space Y-T-T-O
09:00Space G-G-T
09:02R-R-I-I-L-L-L
09:05Space
09:06Done! Okay, stop!
09:08Did I get it right, though?
09:10So, marks out of ten for accuracy of the phrase.
09:1410 out of ten.
09:15Perfect accuracy. Summer is a great time to grill period.
09:19And for that one, we achieved a 26.83 seconds.
09:2426.83 seconds.
09:26With everything in here, so I'm going to double tap and hold down my delete key.
09:31All right, all gone.
09:32All right, now we're going to switch it over to flow type.
09:34The next keyboard. Flow type ready. Keyboard demo to no tech.
09:38All right, I'm all emptied out and ready to go.
09:40The text field's all empty and ready to go.
09:45I'll be ready.
09:47On that car with three, two, one, go.
09:49Three, two, one, go!
09:54Summer. HD. HD.
09:56D. Is.
09:58A.
10:00Great.
10:02Fun. Fun. Run.
10:04Two. Sid. Dubs. Done.
10:06Fun. Fun. Fun.
10:07Let's try again. E-I-M-E.
10:09Find. Find. Time.
10:11There we go.
10:12Two. Grill.
10:14Three. No. Six.
10:15That sounds strange here.
10:17There it is. Period. Done.
10:21Have some bad news.
10:23Yeah, what's it at?
10:2728.61 seconds.
10:29Now, I want to say something though.
10:31Yes.
10:32First of all, two things.
10:33Okay.
10:34I do feel like I'm a pretty fast typer on the standard keyboard.
10:38True.
10:39And my muscle memory is set to the standard keyboard.
10:45So the typing and swiping right and then down, my muscles aren't there.
10:50So my brain, I'm not moving as fast as I could. Does that make sense?
10:54That makes perfect sense.
10:55It's a whole different way of typing.
10:56So here's the question.
10:58Yeah.
10:58Here's the question.
11:00You have been typing on the regular keyboard for many years.
11:03Correct.
11:03So obviously you're very proficient at doing that.
11:05And this keyboard you only downloaded yesterday.
11:08That is correct.
11:09And you've been using it sparsely since then.
11:11Correct.
11:11Just to figure out how it works.
11:12I did use Flexi a lot though back in the day.
11:14Back in the day.
11:15Okay, fair enough.
11:15Fair enough.
11:17But the question is, if you were using the Flowtype keyboard for, let's say, the next
11:23two weeks only, do you think you would be able to get faster than using the regular keyboard?
11:29I think so.
11:30Because I like, yes, I think so.
11:32So just trusting and like not freezing, like trying to remember what gesture to do when.
11:37Especially when you're under pressure with a stopwatch.
11:39Yes, that's part of it.
11:40So I do think that it would be faster.
11:43And I do think in a lot of cases it's a little bit easier too.
11:46You don't have to concentrate nearly as much.
11:49When I was doing the standard keyboard, I really had to lock in to try to hit the letter exactly
11:54right.
11:54Where with the Flowtype keyboard, I could be way more relaxed and sort of just make sure I'm, you know,
12:00somewhat in the right area.
12:02So I might say you could flow.
12:03I could flow it while I type.
12:05So I do think for people who are wanting a little different typing experience, I think Flowtype is absolutely worth
12:12trying it.
12:13Again, it is a beta right now and free.
12:15So why not go and try it?
12:17So I would love for you to throw it down in the comments.
12:20If you use Flexi, what was your experience back then?
12:24Did you like that style of keyboard?
12:25And if you went and got Flowtype, tell us how you are using it now.
12:29Indeed.
12:30All right.
12:30Let's wrap this up.
12:34Well, Corey, that was a Flowtype.
12:36Now, it was a little bit slower, but as we said, you could definitely get faster with it with more
12:41practice.
12:42Now, I will say from a low vision perspective, the keyboard is actually pretty good as well because it is
12:46bolder, larger, more high contrast than your regular iPhone keyboard.
12:51So if you are low vision and you do struggle to, you know, to accurately hit those keys, then I
12:56think this could be the keyboard for you.
12:57Yeah, and I think that one of the ways that it would be faster, too, is the word prediction.
13:03So like when we typed is, we got some different, you know, it, he, us, HD.
13:09I think once they get a little better on their order of words that are shown, that will absolutely speed
13:16up.
13:17One other thing, too, that we didn't show is that you can do kind of standard typing.
13:21So if you just put your finger and hold it on the screen, it'll just speak the letter that's under
13:26your finger.
13:27So if you need to manually type something, you can do that with this keyboard, too.
13:31Well, since it's free, why not give it a go and see where the flow type allows you to type
13:35quickly.
13:36And then as fast as you can, you can leave us a comment saying how much you enjoyed the video
13:40and whether you like a flow type or not.
13:43And Corey, I do believe that not only do we do these produced videos, but I believe that we also
13:48do a live show.
13:49And I think that that happens every other Thursday, from what I remember.
13:52I believe you're correct. I feel like I've been there a few times.
13:57Yeah.
13:5711 a.m. Central.
13:58I seem to remember you being there. 11 a.m. Central. Yeah, that's it.
14:01Every other Thursday. And when you're watching this video, well, who knows what the last show would have been.
14:06But you can just come to our YouTube channel and you can watch those live shows every other Thursday.
14:1011 a.m. Central. See me and Corey talk to a number of special guests and also talk about general
14:14technology topics.
14:15And have a good time. And while you're there, you can even write in the comments and we will read
14:20out your comments live.
14:21So please do join us for that.
14:23We do have other content, including our LMS, our online platform.
14:27You can head over to techconnect.vision-forward.org.
14:30Got tons of content there. Free on-demand ACVREP credits.
14:36Luke has put together a really good screen reader course.
14:38So go and check that out and get free credit as well.
14:43And with that being said, Corey, it's time for us to flow out of here.
14:47Let's keep flowing.
14:49Wow. Goodbye.
15:01And then at the end, like, it may be a big...
15:04Oh, like the basketball buzzer going...
15:08Yeah, end of...
15:09Yeah, end of...
15:10Okay, ready?
15:12Go!
15:12We are now ready and rolling.
15:13Sometimes I wonder why your screen would even have a crack on it.
15:18What are you trying to say?
15:19I don't think I'm trying to say I mistreat my phone.
15:21No, not at all.
15:22Well...
15:22Okay...
15:22See you later...
15:23M
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