Typewise Keyboard Update: The Honeycomb Experiment Hits Reality

Remember when I said I'd give Typewise a full week before deciding if it was genius or madness? Well, I gave it more than that. And I've got some honest feedback that's probably not what you (or I) wanted to hear.

## The TL;DR

**I wanted this to work.** The privacy-first approach is exactly what I've been looking for. The concept is solid. The larger keys made sense. But in practice, using Typewise on my iPhone felt like playing a fighting game with broken hitboxes—you know you hit the key, but it either doesn't register or registers the wrong one.

## What Actually Happened

I used Typewise almost exclusively on my iPhone for over a week, switching between the hexagonal layout and standard QWERTY mode to give both a fair shot. Here's what I ran into:

**The Real Problems:**

- **Missed spaces everywhere** - Words would run together constantly

- **Garbage text** - Typos that autocorrect couldn't catch, or worse, "corrected" into nonsense

- **Unreliable backspace** - The physical button would miss taps regularly

- **Inconsistent swipe gestures** - The swipe-left-to-delete gesture required me to stop typing, carefully execute it, then restart—and even then it often didn't delete enough characters

- **Too slow for real conversations** - During fast-paced Teams chats with my boss or quick messages, I couldn't keep up

And here's the kicker: **These problems happened in both the hexagonal layout AND standard QWERTY mode.** So it wasn't just about learning a new layout—it was fundamental keyboard responsiveness issues.

After a few days of fighting with it, I largely switched back to Apple's keyboard. Yeah, I'm back to angrily tapping "123" every time I need a number, but at least the keys actually work when I tap them.

## The Hitbox Problem

You know in fighting games or FPS games when it feels like the hitbox is off and you should've connected? That's exactly what Typewise felt like on my iPhone. I'd tap where a key should be, and it either wouldn't register or would register the wrong key. When you're trying to have a conversation in real-time, that's not a learning curve—that's a dealbreaker.

## The Autocorrect Lottery

Typewise's autocorrect was... inconsistent. Sometimes it nailed corrections that Apple's keyboard would miss. Other times, it completely whiffed—like when I tried to type "doesn't" and it gave me "do?1nt" or something equally nonsensical.

But the real problem was **catching gibberish too late**. I'd be typing along, glance back at what I'd written about 3 words later, and discover one long string of random partial words, symbols, and numbers all run together. It wasn't just individual typos—it was entire chunks of text that had turned into complete gobbledygook. I almost sent that mess multiple times during fast conversations.

**And here's where it gets worse:** Those long strings of gibberish illustrated the backspace problem perfectly. You get more junk letters from mistaps, and when you try to fix it with the backspace button, it misses half the time. If you try the swipe-left gesture instead, maybe you get it on the first try, maybe you don't—and you have to stop typing completely to do it. So now you're stuck with a string of garbage text, an unreliable backspace button, and an inconsistent gesture that requires you to pause your flow.

**And then you gotta hope it actually catches the correct text when you restart after clearing out the garbage and you're not back to square one.**

The good news: Since Typewise's AI runs entirely offline and learns from your typing, it should get better over time. The bad news: I'm in that awkward phase where it hasn't learned enough yet, so it's not catching everything. And when you're trying to keep up with a real-time conversation, "it'll get better eventually" isn't good enough—especially when you don't realize you've typed gibberish until it's almost too late, can't reliably delete it, and then have to hope autocorrect doesn't fail you again when you retype it.

## What Did Work

To be fair, there were some genuinely good things:

**The Good Stuff:**

- **Privacy protection is real** - Everything stays on-device, no cloud sync, no telemetry

- **Word suggestions were sometimes better than Apple's** - More options shown, and they got more personalized over time

- **I actually used the suggestions** - Unlike Apple's keyboard where I ignore them, Typewise's predictions were useful enough that I'd tap them

- **Long-press for symbols** - Once I figured out that **?** had **! ' "** and **.** had **, : ;**, it was actually pretty convenient

- **My wife hated it** - Which validated the "nobody's borrowing my phone" theory from the original post

- **Successfully had a full Teams conversation with my boss** - I was able to peck through it fast enough to not annoy him, which showed I was making some progress

## What I Learned About Keyboard Layouts

One cool discovery: **You can change the hexagonal layout itself.** It defaults to auto-detect based on your region, but you can manually swap to QWERTZ, Dvorak, Colemak, and others (especially with PRO). So if you're committed to the hex layout, you might find a different key arrangement easier to adapt to. It's all in the settings.

## Some Edge Cases Worth Noting

Beyond the main responsiveness problems, I ran into a few other quirks:

**The Security Code Disaster:**

I tried entering a security code on some website, and the keyboard completely covered the input field. I couldn't see what I was typing or tap the field to paste. The only reason I got through it was because Typewise's autocorrect bar showed me what I was typing. I had to type it blind and hit enter, hoping it worked. (It did, but that's terrible UX.)

**iOS Keyboard Override:**

Some apps or input fields would force iOS's native keyboard instead of Typewise. It's not a bug—it's just how iOS handles certain fields. Interestingly, the same field in Safari might show Typewise while another app forces the native keyboard.

**Ice Cubes Light Mode Bug:**

The Mastodon client Ice Cubes was polling for light mode even when my iPad (or iPhone—it's the same app) was set to dark mode. My workaround: set both Typewise's light and dark themes to dark. Problem solved, but it's another example of third-party keyboard friction.

## The iPad Test

I haven't given the iPad a full test yet—I've been too busy this past week to use it much. I'm planning to try it over the holiday, specifically in standard QWERTY mode, to see if the responsiveness issues are iPhone-specific or if they persist on a larger screen.

If the iPad version works better, that might suggest it's a screen size or touch detection issue on iPhone. If it has the same problems, then it's a keyboard-wide issue that no amount of practice will fix.

## Wait... A Potential Discovery

**As I'm writing this**, I just realized something that might explain everything: My iPhone is set to 135% display zoom because my eyes aren't what they used to be.

**What if Typewise doesn't properly adjust for iOS display scaling?**

If the visual keyboard is scaled up to 135% but the touch detection zones are still at 100%, that would perfectly explain the "hitbox is off" problem. I'd be tapping where the visual key appears, but the actual touch zone would be offset from where I'm tapping.

This could explain:

- Why keys don't register when I tap them

- Why I hit wrong keys constantly

- Why it feels exactly like broken hitboxes in a game

I haven't tested this yet—I'll try temporarily setting my iPhone back to 100% zoom to see if the touch detection improves. If it does, that's a **critical bug** that Typewise needs to fix. Display scaling support is a basic accessibility feature, and if their keyboard doesn't handle it properly, that's a major problem.

**If you use display zoom on your iPhone and you're having similar issues with Typewise, this might be why.** I'll update this post once I've tested it.

## The Verdict (For Now)

I'm not giving up entirely. I'm keeping Typewise installed to see if future updates fix the touch detection issues—and to test whether display zoom is the culprit. **I genuinely love the idea**—the privacy protection is real, the concept is solid, and I want it to work. But right now, the execution isn't reliable enough for daily use.

The "hitbox is off" problem is a fundamental UX issue that makes fast typing frustrating. For casual, slow typing, it might be fine. But for real-world communication—Teams chats, quick messages, anything time-sensitive—it's not cutting it.

## What's Next

I'm planning to:

1. Test whether 100% display zoom fixes the touch detection issues

2. Give the iPad version a proper test over the holiday (in standard QWERTY mode)

3. Report the display zoom issue to Typewise if that turns out to be the problem

Either way, I'll update this post with my findings. For now, I'm back to Apple's garbage keyboard, angrily tapping "123" every time I need a number—but at least the keys work when I tap them.

## Why This Still Matters

The fact that I had to choose between **privacy** and **usability** is absurd. Apple could fix this tomorrow by adding a number row toggle to iPadOS. Google and Microsoft could make their keyboards privacy-respecting. But they won't, because... reasons?

So here we are in 2025, where wanting a keyboard that doesn't spy on you means accepting broken hitboxes and missed keystrokes. That's not a fair trade-off, and it shouldn't have to be.

I wanted Typewise to be the answer. Maybe future updates will make it one. Or maybe it already works fine and I just need to adjust my display zoom. But for now, it's back to keyboard hell.

---