By 
After a very successful run on Indiegogo — and after we brought you our own hands-on preview back in June — developer Whirlscape is now finally ready to bring Minuum Keyboard to the masses, with the app now readily available for download in the Google Play Store.
Touted as the next big thing in virtual keyboards, Minuum captured the world’s attention by creating a new way of typing on small displays, shrinking down the traditional 4-row QWERTY into nothing more than an unobtrusive a single line. Using a variety of gestures, Minuum is supposed to be more intuitive than any other keyboard on the market, solving the problem of “normal” QWERTY’s taking up too much screen real estate. With Android devices regularly hitting 5+ inches of display area, we’re not entirely sure this is problem that even exists today (not even with my sausage-thumbs).
As a creature of habit typing on full sized virtual keyboard my entire smartphone life, I couldn’t find myself getting over Minuum’s steep learning curve. At $4, Whirlscape might be asking a lot from a keyboard replacement that will take a lot longer than the Play Store’s 15 minute refund window to get a good feel for it.
For those who have already paid for virtual keyboards like SwiftKey or Swype, there’s probably little here to sway you away from those staples. But if the idea of having the world’s smallest keyboard layout sounds like something you’ve been desperately in need of, you can download Minuum keyboard for yourself via the link below.
I’d try it for free before I buy, maybe a 7 day trial should be included.
Yeah, it’s something that definitely takes awhile to get used to but for those that can’t get the hang of it, they just blew $4 :/
Did you ever get the hang of it?
I…. did not. It was fine for using normal words. But proper nouns and slang was a nightmare (2 things I use a lot of in my conversations).
I see, same here. Thanks. I’ll stick it on my wish list and wait for a sale.
It will import your google dictionary so it has all my slang words and contact names in the prediction. No problem there.
That’s just a marketing strategy. “It looks useful and beautiful then I don’t care about the price, so I will buy it”
That’s what I was thinking. Where’s the trial? I’d like to use this for a little while. I don’t type paragraphs within 15 minutes. LoL!!
Guess I’ll wait until I see one or something.
The free 1.0 version wasn’t worth it, IMO
I don’t see how they think they can charge $4 (more than SwiftKey, the long-standing most purchased app in the Play Store) for a “re-imagined keyboard.” If no one has ever used anything like it before, why should we all pay $4 to see if we like it? No trial? Seriously? Also, I signed up for the beta months ago. Next thing I hear from you is “hey, go buy it for $4 in the Play Store!” Re-imagine your pricing please
I just don’t have time to learn a new keyboard. Looks like its worth it if it works well.
Sometimes the wheel doesn’t need to be reinvented. Even if it does, sometimes it’s not worth the cost (time and money) that adapting to a new wheel takes.
There might be good reasons for a new format of a keyboard on a phone. The layout we all know was originally created for typewriters and revolve around putting the most commonly used letters in the easiest to reach spots, when typing with 10 fingers. Phone keyboard layout haven’t adapted to thumb typing, but there’s a reason. People expect keys to be in certain spots and automatically know where to go for them. It’s an automatic response for anyone who’s done even a modicum of typing.
Breaking those habits and expectations is hard and without a tangible benefit people won’t do it. If screen space were really that important, then smartphones with slide out keyboards wouldn’t be so hard to find.
Spot on, except for the design motivations for QWERTY. Actually it was designed to prevent typewriter keys from jamming. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY#History_and_Purposes
It’s amazing, and a little sad, how few people know that.
I bought it. I wanted to support them before, but didn’t want to deal with indiegogo. I currently type like a grandma using it, but it’s slowly getting better. Should be like $2 though
I agree with this I bought and started out typing horribly slow but am getting faster as I find different ways to type. I do think it should be a little cheaper though. It’s good but not that good.
Guys, you can get a refund after 15 minutes. It’s like a free trial on any app. I’ve done it many times without error.
http://www.androidcentral.com/how-get-refund-app-google-play-beyond-15-minute-time-window
Yeah, you can request a refund, but there’s no guarantee you’ll actually get one. Especially if the only reason is that you simply “didn’t like it”.
While it’s not full proof, and probably not even worth the risk — yes, you can sometimes still get a refund after the 15 minute window.
I wasn’t aware of that, Mr. Chavez. I always just said that that the app didn’t perform like I wished it would. Thanks for the heads up!
And 15-minutes is not enough time to decide if they are a worthy replacement to my current keyboard – or worth my $4. It takes time to write paragraphs, test my slang on the keyboard, etc. I can’t figure out if breaking my old habits are worth it in the 15-minute refund window.
I don’t see the purpose of a keyboard this small, keyboards don’t actually take up that much screen space do they?
I’ve owned SwifKey through 3 different phones and on two tablets over
the past 2+ years. At this point, something will have to offer a
substantially better experience, and SwiftKey’s predictive text is so
intiutive that I really suffer when using any other mobile keyboard…
So a free version to try for a few days is the only way they’ll get me
to download it, $4 is far too much and 15 minutes is far too little
time….
1 download,
2 titanium backup,
3 refund,
4 titanium restore
5 test drive
6 if you like it buy it so you can get updates.
That doesn’t always work with paid apps.
It would be far easier for me if they had a trial or ad-supported version. That is jumping through far too many hoops.
I beta tested the keyboard a while back and it worked well. It is not my type of thing though and I certainly wouldn’t spend 4 bucks on it… If you really like screen space and don’t mind pretty much using auto correct to type all the time (Sort of like a new school T9 I guess..)
To put the size into perspective, the whole keyboard autocorrect line and all is the size of the two bottom rows of Swype.
the new version from the play store definitely has better predictive capability than the early release. I bought it right away as I fell in love with the early release. I just wish they start pushing language packs and learn from social media like swiftkey. typing passwords or codes is a pain though.
It actually has a different mode for e.g. password input: press and hold with two fingers, and you’ll get a full-scaled keyboard with separate keys for precise input.
After a few minutes with it, fell in love.
I’m using a 5.5” phablet and I absolutely WANT my screen space back. Other humongous keyboards take it away from me, and Minuum gives it back. Typing has become intuitive after just a BIT of learning since you already know where the keys are (it also has several layouts if you don’t know qwerty). This is the only keyboard that allows me to truly type blindly, looking at what I type rather than on the keyboard. Stellar. 5/5
So, it’s settled then. It’s too odd looking and expensive for anyone to risk that much money on. You need to make it cheaper, or release a pretty much full featured trial version for free and hope it really does what you claim it does so that people want to pay for the full version and so that it spreads via word of mouth. I don’t see any alternative.
Lots of booing in comments. The developers are doing something unique AND very practical. If they can’t afford to give it out for free, doesn’t mean it’s not worth $4. Try it out, for God’s sake. You may love it as I did.
I love ‘swyping’, this doesn’t seem worth it to win a bit of screen space. It’s a neat idea though, just not for me.
It can be a double increase of usable screen space compared to other keyboards, considering how much they eat away. On phones, it essentially doubles the height of the viewable area when editing. (Depending on the device screen.)
yeah but personally, I don’t really care about the screen space when I’m typing. Also, pecking away at keys will take me longer than just swyping away, so it negates the positive for me. If they integrate swype, and multi language, then I’ll consider it.
Might be useful on the galaxy watch that week be coming out
Meh not for me, i pref the stock Google keyboard from the play store for free.
Well I coughed up the four dollars and bought it. I kind of like it. It will take some getting used to, but it’s pretty good. In using it as I type this.
I just wish I could make the keys slightly larger than they are.
I’m so tempted to buy this. I hate when I’m on a site where the keyboard covers the text entry box. If I have to type in landscape, this keyboard would be even more useful.
there really should be a free trial of this
Here’s another thought on the genius of the developers. Aside from essentially doubling the remaining screen space (which is already a boon), Minuum goes from 2 dimensions to 1 dimension of finger movement. From a 2D layout to a 1D row. It means much less area to cover, saving finger movements. It also means you don’t need to look on the keyboard to aim, peripheral vision is enough if you remember the qwerty. As an added bonus, no non-letter keys on the row means you can’t hit wrong keys and insert a space or punctuation when you only just wanted to type a word.
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