Android keyboard
A keyboard that types,
and listens.
Lytly for Android is a complete keyboard: six typed layouts, autocorrect, a cursor mode and clipboard history, with the same dictation as the desktop app built into the bar above the keys.
Typing needs no account. Dictation needs an email, a microphone and an internet connection.
A full keyboard first.
Everything you expect from the keyboard you use all day, so you never have to switch away from it.
Six layouts
- English QWERTY, French AZERTY, German QWERTZ, Spanish, Hebrew and Russian
- The globe key cycles the layouts you enabled; hold it for the picker
- Each app remembers the layout you last used in it
- Hebrew and mixed-direction text land the right way round
Corrections
- Autocorrect on space; one backspace puts your word back
- A suggestion row above the letters
- A personal dictionary that learns the words you keep, on the phone only
- Sentence starts and the word I capitalised for you
The keys
- Hold a letter for accents and variants: é, ü, ñ, ё, and Hebrew marks
- Two symbol layers, shift, and caps lock on a double tap
- Enter says Send, Search, Go or Done, whatever the field asks for
- Number, email and web-address fields get their own keys; a key for the emoji picker
Cursor mode
Move, select, cut, copy, paste.
One key turns the letters into arrows, word jumps, line start and end, a Select toggle and the clipboard actions. Hold or swipe the space bar to slide the cursor through what you wrote.
Clipboard
What you copied, still there.
The last things you copied are kept on the phone for an hour and offered from the bar. Password fields never see them.
Then hold the bar and talk.
The same dictation as on the desktop, in the space above the keys. Say it in the language you think in; the text lands in the field you are in.
Eight spoken languages, or Auto when you mix them. Chinese and Japanese are spoken choices; the typed layouts are the six above.
Hold to speak
Hold the bar while you talk and let go to land the text. Tap it instead to keep listening hands-free. A meter and a timer show it is working.
Land it in another language
An output chip on the bar. Speak Hebrew, send English, or keep the mix when that is what you meant.
Fix it with your voice
Select a word or a sentence, hold the bar, and say it again; the selection is replaced. Undo the last dictation with one chip, exactly what was inserted.
Spoken commands
Punctuation, new line and scratch that, in English, Hebrew and Russian. The other languages use the punctuation keys.
A microphone for your computer
Signed in on both, the phone can dictate straight into the desktop app: choose the computer on the bar and the text lands at its cursor.
The receipt
After every dictation the bar shows how long the audio existed before it was discarded, the same receipt as on the desktop.
What leaves the phone
Only dictation audio, while you hold the bar. Nothing you type.
- Typed text
- stays on the phone
- Personal dictionary
- on the phone
- Clipboard history
- on the phone, one hour
- Dictation audio
- discarded after transcription
- Screen reading
- none
- Overlay permission
- none
A keyboard sees everything you type. This one keeps it.
Lytly asks for no accessibility service and no overlay permission. Password fields get no suggestions, no clipboard and no voice. Private browser fields do not teach the dictionary.
Audio goes to Lytly's backend for transcription only and is discarded before the request completes. The bar shows the receipt.
Five steps, two minutes.
Lytly is not on Google Play yet, so it installs from the APK like any file you download.
Download the APK
From the download page. Open it from the browser or the Files app and allow the install when Android asks.
Enable Lytly
Open the app; it takes you to Android's keyboard settings to switch Lytly on.
Choose it as your keyboard
Pick Lytly in the keyboard chooser and allow the microphone for dictation.
Sign in for dictation
An email address and a verification code. Typing works without it.
Pick your languages
The layouts you type in and the language you speak. Auto keeps the mix.
Before you install.
Why not Google Play?
Not yet. The keyboard is in beta and ships as a signed APK from downloads.lytly.app, starting with the next release. New builds are posted on the download page; install one over the other and your settings stay.
Do I need an account?
Not for typing. Dictation needs a signed-in email, and the daily dictation minutes are per account, shared with the desktop app.
Does it read what is on my screen?
No. It asks for no accessibility service and no overlay permission. It sees the field you are typing in, like every keyboard, and keeps that on the phone.
Can I type Chinese or Japanese?
You can dictate them. The typed layouts are English, French, German, Spanish, Hebrew and Russian.
Does the phone need the desktop app?
No. The keyboard is complete on its own. With both signed in, the phone can also act as the desktop's microphone.
Put it on your phone.
Android 8.0 or later. Typing without an account; dictation with an email, a microphone and an internet connection.
Questions or something not working: [email protected].