Keybee Keyboard | Open Source

Papalia Marco

About this app

We live in a World where the keyboard is the most used mobile application, but we type with a layout which belongs to something else.

In 1863 Christopher Sholes wanted to fix the jams on typewriters. So he moved to the opposite the most frequent letters and letter-pairs to improve typing with both hands. The qwerty keyboard was invented. The success of qwerty was so huge that the same layout is still used today as input device on computer keyboard.

In 2007 the mobile world became touch friendly. Smartphones became our daily pocket computer and the touchscreen was introduced to use the phone with one hand.

But typing on a physical keyboard and on a touchscreen is not the same:
- different number of fingers necessary to type: ten vs one
- different gestures: no-swipe vs swipe

So sharing the same qwerty layout is not efficient.

This incompatibility created an usability problem because the device was adapted to the keyboard. How?
- Less space: limited key size and useless gap between keys
- Low speed: no swipe friendly, slow typing because floating fingers through the borders
- Less comfort: no ergonomics and uncomfortable typing, we are forced to type with two hands or switch the phone to landscape.

To fix this problem we adapted the keyboard to the device. How?
- we optimized the space by using an hexagonal structure the most efficient structure in Nature, which increases the key size in the same device area up to 50%
- we increased the typing speed up to 50% by making more swipe friendly connections between letters and letter-pairs and by removing the gaps between keys
- we improved ergonomics by arranging the layout around the center of the screen to type easily with just one finger. No need for two hands for typing.

Discover the new way of typing. For free. Forever.


Thoughts from the founder

The Qwerty on touchscreen is like using a steering wheel on a bicycle: just because I can turn it doesn’t mean that the controller should be like this. A bicycle needs a controller designed for it: the handlebar. A touchscreen needs a keyboard designed for it: Keybee Keyboard.

I want to give Keybee Keyboard for free because the keyboard is the basic human - device interaction and because it is universal. It involves all People in the World, no matter the age they have, the language they speak or the place they live. And all the greatest tech innovations are free.

I would like to thank all the Keybee Keyboard users who gave me the strength to continue this project even without external investments through their messages, reviews, previous subscriptions and purchases.

From 2025 Keybee Keyboard became full free, ads free and Open Source with the permissive license Apache 2.0. I hope that the dev Community can make this project awesome and together we can reach the visibility that Keybee Keyboard deserves. I mean, we don’t have to go to Mars with the qwerty layout, right?

Marco Papalia.


Keybee Keyboard main features

- Twipe typing gesture (swipe on adjacent keys)
- 20+ Keybee themes
- 1000+ Emoji compatible with Android 11
- 4 original layouts (English, Italian, German, Spanish)
- Custom layout
- Custom letter pop-up
- Totally free and ads free

Ratings and reviews

I really enjoy this app and the fact it is so accurate one doesn't really need to have predictive text or an auto-corrector... that said, there are some bugs it seems, like the keyboard closing itself when moving the cursor or the enter key not properly working in some places / apps (like whatsapp's lock screen). Overall I really enjoy using it as I don't feel pressured in having to rush type my messages! 🙂

An awesome idea, but the app isn't usable for me without the ability to switch from English to the other languages I use (like Russian). I understand, that it's not easy to do, but as a temp. solution maybe you could make standard, not optimized, querty-like keyboards for the other languages or the ability to quickly switch to Google Keyboard.

I came across your app through the episode of shark tank Italy. This is an app I would have tried and used 5 years ago for sure. It is a bit quirky at first because it takes time to get used to it. To be quite honest, a lot of the slowness of the one hand qwerty typing has been solved by word auto completion, suggestions, dictation etc. I'm missing too many features with your keyboard that made me switch back to gboard. Best of luck

What's new

First release as Open Source project.