Fleksy, an upcoming text input app, is about to make iOS more accessible.
As it is, iOS already has an impressive suite of accessibility solutions that cater to users with disabilities. Foremost among these is VoiceOver. VoiceOver aids visually impaired users by speaking items on the screen. In addition, it provides alternative selection and scrolling gestures.
Developed by Syntellia based on its patent-pending technologies, Fleksy works with VoiceOver to offer an innovative tap typing system for iOS users with visual impairments. See the app in awesome action in the demo video below, trendily set to Foster The People’s “Pumped Up Kicks.”
As shown in the video, Fleksy uses the familiar QWERTY keyboard to accept text input. But its innovation lies in its ability to determine the words that are meant to be entered by the user.
Amazingly, accuracy is all but disregarded in Fleksy. Even when the user fails to enter a word key for key, Fleksy is smart enough to look at the surrounding keys and deduce what word it is. For example, in the video above, the word arrange is successfully suggested by Fleksy out of the otherwise unintelligible zwysbhr.
The text created in Fleksy can be sent via SMS, emailed, or copied for use in other apps.
Syntellia has submitted Fleksy for Apple’s approval. It hopes to launch the app in the App Store soon. It also hopes to clinch a deal with Apple in order to have Fleksy built into the accessibility options in iOS.
But as a standalone app, Fleksy is already brimming with potential. Who knows? Perhaps next year it will be highlighted by Apple at WWDC, just as it highlighted the blind navigation app Ariadne GPS this year.