Well, I know there are a lot of iPhone users out there that have been desperately trying to find a way to get a Dvorak keyboard layout working on the iPhone. Well, after a few hours of hard work, I’m happy to announce my beta contribution to the community.
All you need do is follow Slava Karpenko’s instructions to install his own Russian keyboard layout and then swap his files (cyrillic-keyboard.men) with my own.
That’s it. Reboot your iPhone and enjoy your Dvorak layout. Please leave your comments/suggestions and issues below.
I’d like to extend my personal gratitude to Slava Karpenko and all his great work. By his own request, I am including his copyright on this, my own derivative of his work.
� 2007, Slava Karpenko www.russianiphone.ru - Modified by Brendon Walsh.
UPDATE:
Richard Kasperowski wrote a fantastic tutorial for completing this hack. My thanks to him for his contribution.
This is great stuff! Thanks for putting in the work. Now maybe I’ll buy one some day ;-)
That’s awesome.
Have you submitted this to Digg yet?
http://digg.com/apple/Dvorak_Keyboard_Layout_Finally_on_iPhone
I have indeed. I’m a little disappointed by it’s reception though after I spoke to so many who wanted it.
Hey, I’m happy to see it! One of the things that’s kept me from buying an iPhone is the lack of the Dvorak layout. Now someone just needs to make a folding keyboard that works with the thing and I’ll buy one!
Maybe resubmit to Digg with the title “Dvorak Keyboard Layout Finally on iPhone”
I noticed that there’re a lot of articles on Digg with John C. Dvorak bitching about the iPhone…
Whoohoo! I am jailbreaking my iphone now!
BTW: Thank you thank you thank you
SCREW YOU AND YOUR DVORAK NONSENSE
You are a a rock star. Dvorak saved my wrists. I haven’t bought an iPhone because of its layout, but I will now! Huge thanks!
Woehaa, great, many thanx. There is one problem I have: I don’t know which of the options from the Rip Dev repository is the cyrillic keyboard, because it’s in russian. Could you put the Dvorak keyboard in the repository? That would make it much easier to install.
I wish I knew how to do that, but I don’t. I have a very limited programming background by comparison to the other hackers developing for the iPhone.
Hi,
For people who type using one hand, would you consider making left and right hand versions of Dvorak?
Thanks,
Andrew
WOW! Thank you very much! I am a Dvorak Simplified Keyboard user and have been waiting for this. I have been hoping iPhone would be able to support this alternate keyboard layout and now will get one.
For the QWERTY users… go ahead an continue to type on the ilogical, obsolete, Standard Keyboard of the 1870s as it obviously isn’t going anywhere soon (even the inventor, Chris Sholes, even tried to change it), but don’t thrash an alteranative effective layout you know nothing about. Did you know that you can spell the word “typewriter” on the top row of Qwerty… how’s that for a marketing stunt?
I typed on the QWERTY knuckle-buster, finger-tangler for over 20 years and developed hand stresses. Last July, I was fed-up and self-taught myself the Dvorak layout and have been typing it ever since http://www.gigliwood.com/abcd/ . It only took me 2 weeks to learn it and beat my QWERTY speeds in about a month or two http://www.powertyping.com/dvorak/typing.html. My hands immediately thanked me and have no desire to go back.
With the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard layout on the iPhone, texting rates will be very fast as your thumbs hover over the home row. For the true story about Dvorak, read the DV Zine and distribute. http://dvzine.org/
Interesting youtube clips as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPfevKbJRmQ & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkMB5Q27nQI
Thanks Again!! :)
Jim
This is a gift from *God*! I can’t get Windows Mobile to grok Dvorak - I now might even be faster on an iphone then on my htc with slide-out keyboard.
Only problem is - I have a custom dvorak with the U and I swapped as I get a 10% speed increase with it on a regular keyboard.
http://anamnesis.nl.eu.org/dvorak-improved.html
I must say that I really appreciate all of your feedback and suggestions. But I must admit that I am no programmer. As much as I’d love to solve all your many issues and really start to get a wide reception on this, it just isn’t ready. It’s a difficult hack to implement for any average user.
So you’ll all be happy and intrigued to know that I am currently in the process of learning Objective C programming practices in the hopes that I can develop an even better implementation of the Dvorak layout in all it’s forms with the new SDK.
Thank you for all your comments. And please continue to leave feedback as it will help in future release cycles.
Brendon,
I saw another user that photoshopped a Dvorak design without the punctuations. Check out this URL http://www.artsy.ca/archives/149
Jim
Thanks for the link Jim, I appreciate your comments on both ends. Now if only we could find a programmer that would be willing to pick up the project. That would speed things along.
The reason this didn’t do well on Digg is because most people have no idea what Slava Karpenko’s instructions are. I finally found them but I still have no idea how I’m supposed to do this. Do you think you could help?
I’ve been looking for a Dvorak layout for the iPhone for a while. It’s been a deal-breaker, but now it’s a deal-maker. I wish more people evolved to this layout. Sigh.
-Mac
Thank you for doing this. Is there any way you could point me to the original instructions? I’m having trouble finding any kind of procedure that gives me the option of substituting your files for the originals.
This could seem n00b, but how would you replace Slava’s files with yours?
This link should help those of you out who can’t figure out how to do it. If you still have problems, kick me an email (brendonwalsh@niamu.com) and I’ll walk you through it.
http://itaptap.com/2007/09/24/iphone-with-cyrillic-russian-or-bulgarian-greek-french-keybard-layout/
I went to the website, but it’s not clear how to add the dvorak layout to me. Sorry, if you could tell me where some step by step directions are that would be great.
This is the website I used and it worked fabulously thanks!!!
The only thing that I didn’t like is that when I press a button and the enlarged letter is Russian not English. So happy to have dvorak on my iPhone! You guys ROCK!!!
http://russianiphone.ru/blog/2007/09/21/tweaking-russian-keyboard-to-speak-your-language/
I appreciane all of the positive comments here on my mod everyone. However to all of you who can’t figure out how to do it, I must apologize. The answers you seek can be found through other members and the usual IRC places.
As for myself, it’s been such a long time since I did this mod that I can no longer recall how to implement any more. I don’t even use a jailbroken iPhone anymore (I found it to be unstable and the SDK is just around the corner.)
Once again, thank you for your comments and feedback. This project is entirely open source just as long as credit os given to Slava Karpenko as he is the originator.
Drop me a line if you have tweaked the project to make it better. This is as far as I will take it.
Brendon, thanks for the help. It worked for me. Here are instructions that might be easier for people to follow.
No, *here* are instructions that might be easier for people to follow: http://kasperowski.com/2008/05/iphone-dvorak-keyboard.html
The layout is great, but I was wondering how-come it doesn’t work in any field that requires a web address such as the address bar in safari or the To and CC fields in mail and how to fix that.
I’m not sure. I’m no programmer. But the issue lies in the original work that was done by the previous developers that I just built off of.
Hopefully in the next few weeks when the SDK is released and language support is broadened to support multiple countries, we’ll have a Dvorak layout on the iPhone without hacking.
Yo, Fantastic Work.
I’m not a Dvorak fan, but my Dad has an iPhone, and NO computer skills. The keyboard is messing his head up, so I’m on the quest to get him an Alphabetical Keyboard. Eg: A B C D ….
This looks like the ticket, all I’ve got to do is edit the Russion package to suit the Alpha-Numeric layout.
You Sir, are a Star!
Brendon,
Brendon, do you have any thoughts on the “key clue” problem? What would be the best way to make the key clues be English letters instead of Cyrillic?
Well, I assume that you’re referring to the tiny popups for each key as you “hover” over them. To solve that, break out your favourite image editor and start editing the keyboard graphics to English characters. I just neglected to do this as I was lazy and wanted a quick fix.
So do you need a jailbroken iPhone to do this?
I just got an iPhone 3G.
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Oh sweet! This is great news! :D
Do you know if this will perhaps work with an iPod Touch?
You definitely need a jailbroken device and it will most certainly work with an iPod Touch. I can not vouch for whether or not this is still possible with current hacked apps and jailbreak methods.
Perhaps one day I’ll have the programming skill to make a real fix. Until that day, I’d love to see someone else take on the project and post back here.