In the pursuit of happiness, we turn to keyboard and home launcher alternatives. There is certainly no shortage of both buried in forums and the Play Store. Finding them on the other hand can sometimes be a trick. While many of us stay true to our favorite like, FlexT9, Swype or Swiftkey, it is always fun to see what others are doing. A new Irish start-up has just launched their take on a keyboard to the Play Store. The use of the term radical in their email to us is an understatement.
The keyboard looks like nothing you have every installed or used before. It gives your onscreen keyboard a layout that resembles a Bumble bees butt with wings sticking out, as you can clearly see in the image. Which coincidentally is their mascot, a bee. It offers all the keys necessary to type, navigate and adjust your message. With a more radical design and layout that would take some time getting used too. They say that “Testing shows that the new keyboard’s efficient alpha-character layout can be memorised in as little as 10-20 minutes.” With major location changes for the keys, like the spacebar being the yellow button in the center, I can see a learning curve that might be a little too high. Having all the needed keys located on one screen could be helpful though. I can see this being a good fit for trials on a tablet, but fitting it on a smaller device screen might make the keys too tiny for an average user to use it effectively.
To kick things up a bit though, they are also looking to make a real life version of the keyboard too. With ergonomics at the focal point as well as speed, the physical keyboard version is an interesting concept and would sure throw a wrench in to the mix of things. While this design and concept is in its infancy, you can see what they are hoping to accomplish below.
As for the app? It is currently available for you to pick up in the Play Store for $1.92 with no free version or trial version to tryout first. For the brave and those looking to try something new, feel free to pick it up via the QR code located below. It supports English, French, German, Italian and Spanish languages with key layouts to match. To find out more information about BeeRaider as whole, or to get involved in feed back, check out their website at BeeRaider.com.
Time for an update. I am the proud father of three, 2, 8, and 11. I finally just moved up from the Samsung Vibrant to the Samsung Galaxy S III...... Let me tell you, it is mind blowing. I love Android, I love tech and I love my family. Not in that order though. I work to hard, play even harder and take care of all that are around me when I can.
[...] more here: BeeRaider brings insane new keyboard app to Android This entry was posted in Android Spin and tagged bee, beeraider, concept, focal, keyboard, [...]
First of all, thank you for the rather positive review that you’ve given our Beeraider keyboard, though we will admit we were a bit worried when we first saw the headline with the word ‘insane’ in it. Believe it or not, we actually think that it’s the standard QWERTY design which is insane, and we explain why on our website as follows:
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The QWERTY keyboard layout was developed in an effort to solve a peculiar mechanical problem that first appeared on early mechanical typewriters. This problem occurred whenever a typist began to type too fast, and the returning key-hammer jammed with the next key-hammer travelling forward to print the follow-on character. This problem arose with the most frequently occurring English language alphabet characters (alpha-characters). The solution was to lay out the QWERTY keyboard’s alpha-character keys in such a way as to slow down a user’s typing speed. This solved the mechanical problem. Along with this, the alpha-characters for spelling the word TYPEWRITER were later deliberately placed on the top row of the QWERTY keyboard so that salespersons in the field selling the mechanical typewriters could easily demonstrate their typing proficiency by quickly typing this word to impress potential customers.
The QWERTY keyboard was never designed with logic, efficiency, or ergonomics in mind and the reason for the QWERTY keyboard’s layout no longer now exists. It follows then that the design is both inadequate and inefficient in the context of how today’s computer keyboards operate.
———————————————————————————————-
We’d like to point out a few misconstrued points you made in your review. Firstly, you’ve got the wrong end of the bee when you say “It gives your onscreen keyboard a layout that resembles a Bumble bees butt with wings sticking out”. This is actually meant to be the bee’s head, and we liken it to the control-centre or hub of the keyboard. We felt that it made more sense to arrange the most frequently used key (space-key) at the centre, with the main modifier keys arranged around it for easy access.
Secondly, we’d like to challenge you on the following point: “With a more radical design and layout that would take some time getting used too. They say that “Testing shows that the new keyboard’s efficient alpha-character layout can be memorised in as little as 10-20 minutes.” With major location changes for the keys, like the spacebar being the yellow button in the center, I can see a learning curve that might be a little too high.”
Note that we say the ‘Alpha-characters’ only. These are those characters typed most of the time by most people. We are not saying that you will be an instant typing-speedster after 10-20 minutes, but we are saying, that if you follow the instructons on our website, you can easily memorise the BeeRaider keyboard layout (especially the US Efficient Layout) in that timespan. Finger muscle-memory will occur in time following usage.
We would encourage anyone interested to visit our website (www.beeraider.com) and carefully read what we have to say about our unique Keyboard Design, before passing judgement on it. Two pages on our website in particular, go into great detail on the reasoning behind the design and how best to use/learn it. Check out the ‘Support’ and ”Design Philosophy’ pages.
We stand over what we say. Our keyboard is logical, ergonomic, efficient and compact. If one spends the time to carefully read what we have to say about it, then we feel they may well come to the same conclusion.
One last point worth making concerns a physical implementation of the BeeRaider Keyboard design. In this case we would claim that the design’s main advantages over standard QWERTY keyboards lie in its small footprint size and its ability to offer the full-set of desktop-keyboard keys without reduction in keycap-area-size. BeeRaider contends that it solves the problem of cramped small keys on devices such as Netbooks and Laptops. Again, the new design is logical, efficient, ergonomic and compact. In short, a keyboard designed for the 21st century.
Another innovative way of a keyboard app. I’m just wondering if how is this fit on a smartphone or a tablet? Saw the video but need to fix things like if some users got big thumbs or fingers. I’m currently using a new keyboard app by dextr.
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[...] more here: BeeRaider brings insane new keyboard app to Android This entry was posted in Android Spin and tagged bee, beeraider, concept, focal, keyboard, [...]
Hi Stormy
First of all, thank you for the rather positive review that you’ve given our Beeraider keyboard, though we will admit we were a bit worried when we first saw the headline with the word ‘insane’ in it. Believe it or not, we actually think that it’s the standard QWERTY design which is insane, and we explain why on our website as follows:
———————————————————————————————-
The QWERTY keyboard layout was developed in an effort to solve a peculiar mechanical problem that first appeared on early mechanical typewriters. This problem occurred whenever a typist began to type too fast, and the returning key-hammer jammed with the next key-hammer travelling forward to print the follow-on character. This problem arose with the most frequently occurring English language alphabet characters (alpha-characters). The solution was to lay out the QWERTY keyboard’s alpha-character keys in such a way as to slow down a user’s typing speed. This solved the mechanical problem. Along with this, the alpha-characters for spelling the word TYPEWRITER were later deliberately placed on the top row of the QWERTY keyboard so that salespersons in the field selling the mechanical typewriters could easily demonstrate their typing proficiency by quickly typing this word to impress potential customers.
The QWERTY keyboard was never designed with logic, efficiency, or ergonomics in mind and the reason for the QWERTY keyboard’s layout no longer now exists. It follows then that the design is both inadequate and inefficient in the context of how today’s computer keyboards operate.
———————————————————————————————-
We’d like to point out a few misconstrued points you made in your review. Firstly, you’ve got the wrong end of the bee when you say “It gives your onscreen keyboard a layout that resembles a Bumble bees butt with wings sticking out”. This is actually meant to be the bee’s head, and we liken it to the control-centre or hub of the keyboard. We felt that it made more sense to arrange the most frequently used key (space-key) at the centre, with the main modifier keys arranged around it for easy access.
Secondly, we’d like to challenge you on the following point: “With a more radical design and layout that would take some time getting used too. They say that “Testing shows that the new keyboard’s efficient alpha-character layout can be memorised in as little as 10-20 minutes.” With major location changes for the keys, like the spacebar being the yellow button in the center, I can see a learning curve that might be a little too high.”
Note that we say the ‘Alpha-characters’ only. These are those characters typed most of the time by most people. We are not saying that you will be an instant typing-speedster after 10-20 minutes, but we are saying, that if you follow the instructons on our website, you can easily memorise the BeeRaider keyboard layout (especially the US Efficient Layout) in that timespan. Finger muscle-memory will occur in time following usage.
We would encourage anyone interested to visit our website (www.beeraider.com) and carefully read what we have to say about our unique Keyboard Design, before passing judgement on it. Two pages on our website in particular, go into great detail on the reasoning behind the design and how best to use/learn it. Check out the ‘Support’ and ”Design Philosophy’ pages.
We stand over what we say. Our keyboard is logical, ergonomic, efficient and compact. If one spends the time to carefully read what we have to say about it, then we feel they may well come to the same conclusion.
One last point worth making concerns a physical implementation of the BeeRaider Keyboard design. In this case we would claim that the design’s main advantages over standard QWERTY keyboards lie in its small footprint size and its ability to offer the full-set of desktop-keyboard keys without reduction in keycap-area-size. BeeRaider contends that it solves the problem of cramped small keys on devices such as Netbooks and Laptops. Again, the new design is logical, efficient, ergonomic and compact. In short, a keyboard designed for the 21st century.
Thanks again for the review!
Regards!
Ray.
Beeraider, Ireland.
Another innovative way of a keyboard app. I’m just wondering if how is this fit on a smartphone or a tablet? Saw the video but need to fix things like if some users got big thumbs or fingers. I’m currently using a new keyboard app by dextr.
Here is what I’ve been using for almost 3 months from now a keyboard app as well:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gkxim.android.dexter&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5na3hpbS5hbmRyb2lkLmRleHRlciJd