Minuum has had an interesting life so far. It’s a one-dimensional keyboard which raised over $87,000 on an Indiegogo campaign earlier this year. It’s been in private beta for quite a while. But today, the Toronto-based keyboard has launched on the Google Play Store and is in public beta.
Minuum is one of the many third-party keyboards on the Google Play Store. But it has gained a lot more press than many of these other keyboards on the Play Store. We haven’t taken a look at Minuum just yet, but we’ll be sure to check it out soon and get a review done.
The company behind Minuum is Whirlscape and is based in Toronto. Whirlscape has said that the end goal here isn’t an Android app. But is actually a way to showcase the incredibly flexible autocorrect algorithms employed in the software. As their Play Store description says “The Minuum keyboard for Android touchscreen devices is just the first step towards a ‘type anywhere’ future. Minuum will let you type on wearable devices, from smart watches, to game controllers, to devices that havent been invented yet. By supporting the Minuum beta for Android touch-screens and making it better, you help to enable this vision.”
There is a large scale keyboard layout, which is activated by pressing-and-holding with two fingers. In version 1.1 there are now QWERTY and AZERTY layouts for non-English users. There’s also voice input now along with much easier punctuation. You can grab version 1.1 of the Minuum Keyboard on the Google Play Store now.
Minuum is one of many keyboards available for Android devices. But I’m not sure any keyboard is good enough to get me off of Swiftkey. Especially with the new features in Swiftkey Cloud. Being able to sync my dictionary across all my devices is just awesome. In Addition to Swiftkey knowing exactly what I’ll be typing next. I’d like to see some more competition between all these keyboard developers though.
How many of you have been checking out Minuum? Is it worth the $3.99 price tag for a public beta? Let us know your thoughts in the comments down below.