Filip Brož Are you playing AZ Quiz on your iPhone? That was my wife's first sentence when she saw the new Wrio keyboard on my iPhone 6S Plus a fortnight ago. I immediately assured her that it was a new startup developed by developers from Switzerland. They state in their promotional materials that within a fortnight you will type up to 70 percent faster thanks to this keyboard. So I texted her on my iPhone for two weeks straight...
The first days were literally purgatory. Unlike other keyboards, Wrio relies on a completely different key layout. Instead of the classic rectangle, you have hexagonal-shaped letters on the iPhone display. In addition to the aforementioned AZ quiz, they can also resemble a honeycomb. The important fact is that the key layout used completely breaks the standard QWERTY layout. In the beginning, I was literally looking for every letter.
The early days with the Wrio certainly weren't a harmonious coexistence, and there were many times when I fought the need to switch back to the system keyboard, but the developers' claim that their creation would eventually make me type much faster made me stay. Additionally, there were a few things that initially attracted me to Wria.
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Unlike other keyboards, I like the placement of the space bar on the Wrio. It is located in the middle of the keyboard in two empty fields. The delete key has also been removed, instead it can be deleted by swiping your finger to the left, anywhere on the keyboard. A swipe to the other side means canceling the delete. The up and down direction then switches between upper and lower case letters.
Swiping up or down is also useful for some keys that are split. Depending on the direction of the swing, you write either a character at the top or at the bottom, namely a comma/period or a question mark/exclamation point. Of course, Wria also includes numbers and special characters, as well as its own emoji.
On the positive side, Wrio supports over 30 languages, including Czech and Slovak, so you are not limited (as with many other keyboards) by the fact that the keyboard can only speak English. Support for the Czech language here means the presence of letters with diacritics, which are written in Wrio by holding your finger on the letter and a hook or comma pops up. When the press is longer, even more options will appear.
In this regard, typing is a bit faster because you don't have to press the letter first and then the hook/dash separately. After a week of using the Wrio keyboard, I got quite used to the new layout, which meant that I wasn't looking for individual letters and characters as often, but on the other hand, I definitely didn't feel like I was typing faster.
Unfortunately, this feeling did not change for me even after a fortnight, after which the developers promise a noticeable acceleration. The iOS system keyboard continues to be my number one choice. It's a shame that Wrio doesn't offer auto-completion against it, which is often a big plus with other third-party keyboards.
According to the developers, faster typing is mainly helped by the size of the individual keys, which are large enough that you always hit the right key. That is true, but I think that a fortnight is too little to adopt such a different system after years of getting used to another.
The Wrio developers certainly had a good idea, moreover, they promise to add help or dictation in the future, but I have a feeling that it would be better if they kept the standard QWERTY layout, or at least did not deviate from it that much. In this way, the user has to learn not only new features in the controls, but also to search for letters, which is not optimal.
However, the novelties in control are probably the most interesting thing about Wria. Flicking the finger is used very effectively here, and the placement of the space bar is innovative. However, it may not suit everyone. If the system keyboard doesn't suit you and you want to try something completely different, Wrio is an interesting choice. However, you need to prepare three euros and also a considerable amount of patience in the first days.
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And didn't they just mean 70% faster typing compared to the first attempt to create text with this keyboard?? :D