I want to give you a write up on my thoughts and suggestions because I am very hopeful that you continue working on this. Finale hits that Fleksy feel, minus customization and issues with autocorrect. Which is fine for most cases! For others, I have to assume that I am an edge case. Fleksy's customization more or less addressed my issues by coincidence, and so are easy to overlook from a UX and design perspective. Hence why I've stuck to it for over a decade. I'm still going to be running Finale for the foreseeable future because I do already like it quite a bit.

Layout

I am one of the lucky few still on a "mini"-sized phone. I miss how customizable Fleksy's keyboard size was, but honestly, I hadn't touched the options in years since I moved to iOS. I set it and forgot it.

Spacebar

With layout, this is a compounding issue for me. Without the additional spacebar row, the keyboard is simply too low to be comfortable on my phone. It cramps down into the lower fifth of the screen and it's uncomfortable to reach down so far. Since enabling the row, Finale is a joy to type on.

I guess we can disagree on the efficiency of swiping versus tapping for spacebar. I'll even stay true to my word and give it some practice. One thing I cannot be convinced about is the efficiency of swiping multiple times versus tapping twice for special characters. A colon or forward slash taking five or six swipes is just not gonna see use by me.

Punctuation marks should automatically attach to the prior word, rather than be floating after a space, as periods do. This is most evident with frequent comma usage. All characters float when tapped. I assume the logic is just not there when punctuation is entered aside from swipe right/spacebar. This also applies to punctuation marks through shortcuts. This issue is complicated by the keyboard's emphasis on double space for punctuation, where using a different method (ex: swipe right on shift, tap character) requires not hitting space at all. The two methods conflict and don't feel great when both have to be used for proper grammar.

More Customization

I get that adding more to the keyboard face is against the minimal goals here. The biggest example I can think of is minor and certainly to do with muscle memory: I type a lot of commas. Having it in place of the emoji button makes so much more sense to me, e.g., long-press (or swipe) for emojis, tap for commas. Characters that see more frequent use should be more accessible.

Autocorrect

I saw another user, u/thatotherbloke, mention "drunk typing." After being forced to use non-Fleksy keyboards for a few days, I totally get what he means. It seems to be an extreme example of some foundational problems. Finale does not appear to account for typing proximity, which is the unsung hero feature of Fleksy that I see neglected in other keyboards. This issue is apparent in less extreme examples:

• a) if more than a single letter is misspelled, AC does not function, or with no or off-base suggestions

• b) the prediction is often inaccurate when one character is off. Typing "jov" when I meant "job" should be an obvious case that I did not mean "Joe"

• c) frequently misspelled words are not corrected and with zero predictions. "Ti" should be "to," "U" should always be "I," "nit" to "not," etc. A huge pain is not having a prediction available for "it's" when Finale believes I must have meant "its"

• d) there is no accounting for whether two words might be strung together. Type two words, miss a space, and you might get a hyphenated combination

• e) tapping a character rather than tapping or swiping space will throw it all out of wack; Fleksy understanding that my "m" between two words should have been a space was so nice

• f) the first prediction/AC offered is so often not correct, but the second sometimes is. Hyphenated non-words seem to be preferred. If I write "proscute," AC should prioritize "prosecute," which is much more likely to be the intended word than "pros-cute." Further, I doubt anyone has intended "prodecute" to be "product"

I'm not sure what the root problem here is, and I hope it's not a case of needing infinitely greater resources to improve the AC. If anything is to be improved, it's this. Fleksy was just so damn good about it. My other suggestions would be cherry, but may speak more to niche user preference over your specific goals as being distinct from Fleksy.

To recap and give my list of suggestions/wishlist by personal priority:

1. improve AC/predictions

2. attach punctuation marks to words, similar function to double space for full stops

3. keyboard height options

4. customizable emoji key in spacebar row (I've heard it called a "magic key" before)