Is it possible to fast touchtype on iPad or is voiceover just not up to the task? Settings appreciated...

Hi Oliver,

Do you have your typing mode set to direct touch typing as opposed to regular touch typing? You can check this by cycling around in your rotor until you find typing mode, or you can change it in VoiceOver settings itself.

Hi Oliver,

You use less pressure than you think when direct touch typing because the whole point is for VoiceOver to not announce the character under your finger. I typically drum my fingertips with my hands splayed on the screen as if I were typing on a physical keyboard. There are, of course, multiple ways you can type. I would suggest turning on character echo — that really helped me.

There's a bug that you'll encounter when direct touch typing: VoiceOver will revert to standard typing, even if direct touch typing is activated. You can hide keyboard or turn off VoiceOver as a quick fix. This bug is triggered more if you rely on Voiceover to locate the character instead of simply touching it.

Hope this helps and good luck! Happy typing!

if so, what do you expect? Perfection? Lol! Jeez Louise! If not, disregard!

Hate to say it, but I think right now it doesn't seem possible to type fast with VO enabled. I kind of hadn't noticed, since I don't have speed dots and I'm typing slower to make sure it's accurate, but flat out typing doesn't seem to work.

There are a couple of time out things, double tap time out and one I can't remember in the VO keyboard settings, but I'm not sure either of those would help since the one in the keyboard seems to relate to how long you hold your finger down before the extra characters appear and other relates to double tap, which you're not doing typing like that.

Other things you could possibly try would be turning off spell check or auto-correct while typing, but again, I doubt it'd help.

If you're beta testing, I'd consider reporting it, possibly with a screen recording if they'll accept it.

Just curious but have you figured out any situation why this isn't at all possible? I speculate that apple and other manufacturers have the responsibility to make sure their product works as advertised. Say you got your wish and could type at lightning speed as i am on the comp, and everything turned out fine for you. What if another user thought they could do as they used to, say they came to IOS with a recent vision loss but everything did not pan out. In apple's view they need Voice over to be as accessible as possible. Therein lies the problem. You find the use case for you to be completely accessible, nothing but a perfect typing experience. The hypothetical person I've invented for this scenario would not thereby making Apple have to choose how to develop their screen reader. does this make any sense at all? I would love to be able to type a lot faster especially with both hands, BSI notwithstanding. Here's hoping there can be some fix or at least maybe another level of typing.

That sort of thing is always possible, but I don't believe it should ever stop someone from reporting what they think of as a bug or at least a less than optimal experience. As long as you're respectful and factual, saying what you experience, what you expect to experience instead, it's then just more data for the developers.

ideally, you'll get a response that says something like "fixing x will break y", or unfortunately Voiceover just has too much overhead right now to get you the experience you expect or something, but then it's something they know is a problem to at least some people. That's software development for you, ☺️.

I've always used one finger to touch type on the iPad. If I want to type really fast, I either use my Magic Bluetooth Keyboard or my braille display.
It would be very nice if more keyboards similar to Fleksi could be submitted to the App Store for us. I have AutoCorrect turned on, so I might just quickly try turning off VoiceOver to test it.
Nope, I tried turning off VoiceOver and couldn't even type properly so I had to keep deleting what I typed after I turn VoiceOver back on, and now I'm currently using dictation and my one finger over the keyboard, as I've always had trouble trying to splay my fingers over the letters to touch type.

I do not use speed dots, or a Bluetooth keyboard. I use just my iPhone. I type heavily, every day. I have medical transcription in my background. Of course, I much prefer a keyboard. However, without adding anything to my phone, I feel that I type quite rapidly, one-handed.

Here is what I do... I hold the phone in one hand, I use one finger to type, with the other hand. All I do is touch approximately where that letter T is, for example, and I'm either Accurate, or perhaps one letter off. With a simple finger tip tilt one way or the other way, without lifting my finger tip, will allow me to find the letter I was aiming at, and onto the next one. If I have completely missed the mark, I do not lift my finger off the screen again, until I either find a letter, or I drag my finger way up above the keyboard, which deactivates the keyboard, that's ensuring no erroneous letters are input into the edit box. I am able to produce quite rapidly, of course not like a standard keyboard, but with a little bit of practice, and adjusting the angles of your hands one against another, you can become a rapid typist. At least this has been my experience. Turning voiceover completely off, without any additional things added to my screen, of course would never work for me. I also do not want any dots on my phone. Don't misunderstand, I'm not against speed dots, they just would never work for me. I am very glad to have The new way of typing. It has increased my productivity 400%.

I think the one thing that I discovered is, it is not a matter about keeping perfect straight lines, when holding your phone, and trying to type. No, quite contrary. It is about getting the typing hand hovered over the screen correctly. One of the simplest tricks I have found, is to use my thumb as an anchor point, for the phone to rest upon. My thumb is based at the lightning port location on the bottom of my phone. I rock the phone back-and-forth with my right hand against my left thumb, just depending on the angle I need. But, I always ensure that my left hand, my typing hand, is always oriented straight over the phone. So my right hand can go back-and-forth with weird angles, but my left hand is always in proper typing position. It seriously works for me. The thumb support anchor thing increased my productivity so much, when I was a brand new user. I never stopped using this method. When I developed this method, it was in order to create proper spatial orientation. I found that, just because my hand was above the glass, when I tried to point and shoot, at messages, for example, my accuracy was so bad. But, simply using my thumb as that anchor point, all the sudden I could find everything on my screen. This has translated over into the typing keyboard, as well. I hope it works for you guys.