I use Thumb-Key on android and like it. It's even made by one of the Lemmy founder duo.

You can replace it on Android

does anyone use this style keyboard? (8vim or similar). i ask because i've wanted to learn to use it for a while but i don't have an android.

Most stock android keyboards are ass. You are not off on that. The nice thing is you can install a third party one that's better and maybe better than the iOS one. It will be more customizable. I do recommend you stick with a Foss keyboard off fdriod though.

Ios keyboard makes me want to eat my fingers off when it gets letters wrong on purpose and i have to retype a few times. Never had this issue on android and had lots more accessibility options that apple just doesnt provide

they’re both equally bad and have gotten worse over the years , i say this as someone who used both heavily for work reasons from 2020-2025

i will say ios up to about 2021 was a bit better, it’s one of the reasons i switched to iphone in the late 10s

Thats because you aren't using Heliboard

I think they've put AI in the autocorrect because it's doing worse now than it ever has. Or at least it feels that way.

I just want physical buttons back on my phone

I've been android for years, but had work iPhones a few tears back, plus my partner's phone is iPhone. I find iOS way harder, so I'd put it down to muscle memory.

It's worth noting that apple are almost certainly better at this sort of UX, it's their biggest selling point. The original iPhone keyboard was one of the hardest things they had to crack, as the screen was literally too small to be accurate, and the amount of predictive letter choice that happens behind the scenes is huge. I don't mean the word prediction, but the letter you choose is figured out from context and how your finger presses the screen.

I do find on GBoard, I make typos frequently enough, but it does reliably correct them. On iOS I spend more time scrubbing back to fix things than actually typing.

Swipe typing has gotten worse over the years.

Typing on phones sucks. I was using Swiftkey, which was great. But it's owned by Microsoft and they kept putting popups for their AI in Swiftkey. I'm on Anysoftkeyboard because it's the only FOSS keyboard with swipe typing. It also sucks, but it's FOSS and won't sell my data

The Samsung keyboard is awful, but I'm used to Gboard on Pixels and trying to use an iOS device is a nightmare.

Also, for at least the last ten years all of these keyboards learn from your inputs, the words you use, and how you misspell things. If you switch to a new device, you're starting from scratch on muscle memory, but the device is also starting from scratch on your-input-memory. iOS at least carries over your keyboard data between devices, but that isn't something that syncs between Android devices. (especially not between different manufacturers)

I find gboard to be fine on my note 9, and the few times I have to use an iOS on screen keyboard (when fixing boomers' ipads) I find it extremely annoying to use. No long pressing the top row for numbers is irritating, but the worst part of typing in iOS isn't the keyboard itself but the cursor. It seems to refuse to go to the middle of a word so anything the autocorrect doesn't get right I have to retype the entire word.

Also don't forget swipy typing

i completely agree, typing on my phone is an absolute chore and it is leagues worse than iphone, i have tried virtually every major keyboard and they're all not that great

Idk about the android keyboards, but I know the apple keyboard actually increases the size of the hitbox of the next letter it thinks you'll type, so if android doesn't do that, it could need some getting used to

I use the FUTO keyboard and its better than iPhone imho

both suck but muscle memory is a fuck and google is slightly worse

The last good Samsung keyboard I used was on the s7. I've had to move to Gboard with anything after for my own health.