Magic Keyboard

PicomatStudios

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Hello - wanted to let you know about a new keyboard app, Magic Keyboard.
Just wanted to get some opinions from those who are familiar with Android keyboards.

It's a predictor-style keyboard which recognises chains of words upto 4 in length.
This means its predictions and corrections behave a little differently depending on context.

You do have to install a language pack to get this functionality, but this helps keep update data low (the main app is only 140KB) and it means that the app doesn't require internet access so you can be confident your personal information is kept private.

We think it's good for people who like to write in full sentences rather than txt spk but we'd like to know what you think.

There's a trial of the Pro version out at the moment.

Thanks !

Picomat Studios, Melbourne
 

Jochen K.

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Hi,

just to give a very brief first impression (I just installed it on my way to bed)
It's certainly different and interesting:

-tiny app, massive (15 to 20 MB) dictionaries
-Great: the keyboard layout doesn't change with the language - first keyboard I've ever seen with that wonderful feature (in preferences you select your layout, and that's it).
-Quaint: When I test a new keyboard, the first thing I do is open a new text file which always takes the same text to compare initial performance - after the name of the keyboard. When I had typed in "Magic Keyboard" (Language German), I was left with "Nativ Lesbares" - you forgot to put yourselves into the dictionary... or are you that modest?
-Interesting: you give the user access to the user dictionary (great!), and when I opened it it turned out to be a dictionary apparently left behind when I removed a previous test candidate (it contained some intentional typos of mine).

The rest will have to wait until brekfast time - in 6 hours.

Regards,

Jochen

Edit: a lot to report - back to work now... till tonight.
 
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Jochen K.

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More first impressions during breakfast...
a) The keyboard itself
-there is basically only one keyboard - available in many colours (four in the Trial version, a further 20 or so in the Pro version
-there is no Alt key on the letters page of the keyboard - characters like n ? > are all obtained by long press (those three bound to the n key)
- long press appears to have a bug - mostly the app behaves as expected; you slide to the desired character, and release. Sometimes the pop-up remains on the screen and you have to tap again on your choice to select it.
- The numerical page is quite extravagant: it offers the keys of a basic calculator plus some characters you would expect on Alt, some simple Maths characters like v ? p ? (not useful unless your device has the right fonts installed - when I typed those four characters, besides the fraction there were square root/pi/integral) , arrow keys for moving the cursor, and 40 smileys.

b) Typing
-The keyboard appears a tiny bit sluggish, and changing languages takes several seconds.
- Once the shift key froze and I could only get rid of CAPS by changing the language to German and back (make that twice: when I typed Caps with caps lock engaged, it happened again, and now all SUGGESTIONS ARE ALL CAPS..... I actually had to close and reopen the text editor I am typing this in to get back to normal.
-Predictions mostly work well so far, but here too there appears to be some room for improvement.
-- In spite of the vast dictionaries there is some very strange behaviour; in German a lot of common
place words are missing, and the word "obwohl (although) was not just unknown but could not be learned; I had to put it into the user dictionary manually.
Typing "a" in English parents (this was supposed to be often - inserted before doesn't - very strange replacement) doesn't bring up ANY suggestions!
and the word "and" twice now had to be typed completely without any predictions.
-Stuff at the beginning of a word has strange effects, such as...
-Word is interpreted as a new word and the app asks if it should be learned
+Word is completely ignored (empty prediction bar)
-so far the unusual way of predicting promised in the forum has not surfaced, but I'll keep using this keyboard for a few days at least and see what happens.

Regards,

Jochen
 

Jochen K.

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Edit:
I have just received notification of the release of Magic Keyboard Pro and bought it.

Unlike MC Free the (see below) Pro Version has an Auto Text function.

In the line above I saw a first example of their kind of prediction: I had typed "Free the p", wanted to change that to a capital P, deleted the p and suddenly saw "slaves" as first suggestion.

Unfortunately, the Pro version appears to share (if to a much lesser degree) the problems of the Free version - and I just found a really weird new one: I wanted to delete something and accidentally touched the screen, so I ended up deleting the first two letters of "slaves"; I retyped them, tapped the screen where I wanted to continue... and eventually had to close and reopen the text file, because MC insisted on putting the new text in the place of "sl".

I have by now found the predictions and word completions to work very well indeed.
If the word isn't very short, intentional typos have a very small chance of slipping through.

If Pockmark (err... that should have been Picomat; they really didn't put their own names into their dictionaries) manage to eliminate the few bugs that bugged me so this morning, this should become a very good keyboard.
 

PicomatStudios

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>> This app still in trial?
Hi there, the full Pro version has now been released and we've incorporated most of the trial feedback.
We continue to work on things so if you have it installed best to update when new versions appear.

regards,

Picomat Studios.
 

PicomatStudios

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Jochen huge thanks for your feedback.

To get back to you:
- small app / large dictionaries you are quite correct! It's done this way so that updating doesn't eat into your data allowance.
- the pop-up bug: this should be fixed in the latest version
- note that a double tap on the shift key will activate CAPS-LOCK (and another double tap will turn it off)
- empty prediction bar on new word - this is simply because for a new word, we don't know what should be next (Pro will learn gradually)
- you're correct we don't put our name in the dictionary :) Our general approach to names is to avoid them since they are fairly user-specific
- obwohl.. we hadn't spotted this so will double check

We also have a question on your comment '....apped the screen where I wanted to continue... '
Could you tell us which app you were using to edit your text file ?

Incidentally we have modified the layout behaviour so that it does, by default, swich with language - partly because we now support Russian and Hebrew.
However you can change that in the Settings menu (just change the Keyboard Layout from Auto to your choice).
 
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Jochen K.

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We also have a question on your comment '....apped the screen where I wanted to continue... '
Could you tell us which app you were using to edit your text file ?
.

Hi,

thanks for the detailed answer; I'll give Magic Keyboard another go.

About the app - not quite sure (I've switched devices and didn't transfer all the apps) - it was a note app; if you think that the name is relevant, I can unearth my old phone and have a look at the name.

Regards,

Jochen
 

PicomatStudios

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A new 7-day trial of Magic Keyboard Pro is available from Google Play

All features are unlocked, including learning, auto next and next word prediction.

The latest version also has a WYSIWYG theme editor so you can create your own themes.

Tj6dFyqNfO_fFLOSUBPqQk4y75pn3D4zXcIAF9DPDSo4KIPqAJrG6i1pU3-oBay7dkw

D2rUM2IrM-DrcwvogOQA5EHkY0k8YDYJb08TscUcSKBli9ex89Rr8hEBKb10ugF6cR8

rkqinCa-ivhzGFL0EacCJPfLRTClQHxIgfLRNwuXi84pX_jJ_EgL1ZB5A98HWpO6Zg

h8AEEJnCJgCfLyzMEgMgr2C3vbMH-MhZ0kTxX_cNAvBlblitRBBCce1nfLiWuOKnyQw
 
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PicomatStudios

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An italian language pack is now available.
There are also a number of speed optimisations - try it and see !

Languages now supported are:
  • English (US/GB)
  • French
  • Spanish
  • Italian
  • German
  • Hebrew
  • Russian

Any questions or problems please e-mail us.
 

NickNick43

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Using the trial now. I have been obsessed with finding a keyboard where I can just hammer out text and the correction takes care of the rest. I was spoiled by WP7 keyboard before heading back to Android. I used Swiftkey for years but started to feel it was actually slowing me down and *gasp* altering my thoughts as I typed because of the next word prediction.

Anyways good job so far. Will see how the trial goes and maybe it will be worth dropping some $ on another keyboard.

BTW, I have tried: Smart Keyboard, AI type, adadptxt, swiftkey flow, perfect keyboard, jelly bean 4.2, htc sense 4 stock, etc.....
 

PicomatStudios

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Hi Nick.

Thanks for trying it out. The auto correct balances the predictive dictionary against your typing patterns so should do a pretty good job in most cases.. while some people perfer to use the suggestions bar for next words, fast typists can just hack away at the keys!

Let us know how you get on.

Incidentally the Pro version is half price until the end of the year.
 

NickNick43

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Downloaded the Pro. Couple of notes/ hopes for next update:

-Would like an option to set sound to system level
-Really Really would like to see the ICS/ Jelly Bean voice to text used. This is an amazing feature that I use when driving.
-Custom sounds for keyboard (specifically WP7 keyboard sound)

Otherwise not too bad so far. Still trying to find the correct keyboard height for my typing style.
 

NickNick43

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Definitely ringer volume. I usually have no clue where the media volume is. What are you working on for the next update? Any ways to improve the occasional lag? I am using a One S so def. have the processing power
 

PicomatStudios

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>> What are you working on for the next update?

We are pretty much feature complete now - so we're working on sourcing additional languages.
We'll add the ICS-style voice to text and the sound options though as both are good ideas.
After that we have a bit of refinement to do on the tablet layouts.

Lag seems OK on our nearest equivalent (a One V) so we'd be keen to explore this a bit further.. would you mind e-mailing us on our support at picomat.com address describing it a bit further ? Specifically details on what apps you're using at the time, whether you run things like task killers etc, in the background how often & when it happens. Thanks !
 

Speaking

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I like the keyboard a lot but one thing important to me is how some keyboards use your contact list. There are around 200 names in my list that are not regular English names that I mention in IM and text messages about 30 times per day. With some other keyboards their names appear after typing 2 or 3 letters and I don't even have to capitalize, it is already done. Will you have this feature also?
 

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