FUTO Keyboard | FOSS and Functional
The Best Keyboard for Android – Private, Open Source, and Actually Functional
I found the perfect keyboard. Voice-To-Text recognition work, totally offline, doesn't "rewrite" my sentences, and it has swipe to type.
This organization called FUTO: https://futo.org created it. Check them out they have a bunch of other projects.
My Love/Hate Relationship with AI and Big-Tech
I got into IT professionally around the time when THE Cloud became a thing. AKA - Servers on the internet where you stored things... (fucking marketing ppl).
The same way THE Cloud became ingrained in every-single-product. Now LLMs and "AI" (half the time anything with an algo is being called "AI" now) are being shoved into everything, in the exact same manner.
Dear GBoard Keyboard, STOP REWRITTING MY SENCTENCES.
Google’s Gboard and Microsoft SwiftKey have both gone downhill.
Their AI integrations try too hard to predict and correct what I am saying, often making things worse. I have had some awkward conversations because Gboard went back and changed the start of my sentence after I finished talking. That is not what I need from a keyboard.
This new keyboard does it right. It lets me talk for up to 30 seconds before stopping, and I can even set it to run indefinitely if I have a powerful enough phone. The developer behind it, FUTO, has released it for free, but I am gladly sending them $12 because this is the kind of project that deserves support.
If you are tired of your keyboard working against you, check this out. https://keyboard.futo.org/
Futo is More Than Just a Keyboard – They Are Building Something Bigger
After checking out the Futo keyboard, I decided to dig a little deeper into the company behind it. Turns out, Futo is not just some small app developer. They are an organization focused on building offline, user-controlled tools.
One of the first things that stood out to me is that they run their own PeerTube instance instead of relying on YouTube.
As I kept looking, I found one of their upcoming projects. It is not out yet, but it looks like it will be an open-source IDE. The description makes it sound like a tool for software development that aligns with their philosophy of keeping things local and under user control. They have not released the source code yet, but they plan to once it is ready.
It is rare to find companies that actually prioritize user control over convenience, but Futo seems to be an organization who provides both (convenience , user-control).
I will definitely be keeping an eye on what they do next. If you are tired of big tech dictating how you use your own devices, they might be worth checking out. Full details here: https://futo.org
Futo Keyboard | AI Powered | Offline only | Wonderful Android Keyboard