SideType v2.1.1

Fixed

• Pressing a key on its own now suggests the more common letter first. Tapping U/I once offered "u" before "i", even though "i" is a whole word and far more common — and the same went for every other key. The order was simply the order the letters are printed on the physical key, because a lone key press never reaches the dictionary and so had nothing else to rank by. English and English (UK) now rank those letters by how common they are. The keycaps, ABC mode, and which key types a letter are all unchanged.

Install: download SideType-v2.1.1.apk and open it, or add this repo to Obtainium for update notifications. arm64 only.

v2.1

[2.1] — 2026-07-17

Added

• A proper app icon. SideType now has its own launcher icon — the Compact
  QWERTY keycap on a soft silver ground — so it's easy to spot among your apps
  instead of wearing the inherited Traditional T9 mark.
• A way to support SideType. A new Support SideType entry in Settings →
  About opens the project's GitHub Sponsors page. SideType stays free and asks
  for nothing on its own; this is only there if you'd like to chip in.

Changed

• The project moved to the SideSuite organisation on GitHub. Existing installs
  keep updating (the old links redirect), and language-dictionary downloads now
  come from the new location.

SideType v2.0 — offline voice input

Offline voice input. Press 🎤 on the keyboard strip and talk — words appear as you speak. It runs entirely on the phone: nothing you say is sent anywhere, and it works with no signal at all. Powered by Vosk (Apache-2.0).

Each language needs a one-off ~40 MB voice model, downloaded only after you approve it, with the real size shown up front. Manage them under Settings → Voice input.

Language	Voice model
English (US)	✅ 41 MB
English (UK)	✅ 43 MB
German	✅ 46 MB
French	✅ 42 MB
Spanish	✅ 40 MB
Finnish, Norwegian, Danish	❌ not possible — no model exists at any size
Swedish	⏳ deferred — 303 MB, accuracy unmeasured

Finnish is a genuine limitation, not an oversight: every engine that covers it needs far more phone than the SP-01 has (one measured at 15 s to load and 783 MB resident). Full reasoning and measurements in docs/adr/0001.

⚠️ Breaking: arm64 only

v2.0 will not install on 32-bit devices. v1.1.1 shipped no native code and installed anywhere; v2.0 ships Vosk's native libraries. The SP-01 is arm64, so nothing changes for it — but if you ran SideType on some other device, v1.1.1 is the last version for you.

Shipping all four architectures would cost ~35 MB; shipping the one the phone uses costs ~9 MB. Download is ~44 MB, up from ~33 MB. The voice models are not bundled.

Also new

• English (UK) dictionary — British spellings rank above American ones, so mid-word prediction offers colour, organise, centre. American spellings still resolve as fallbacks. [beta].
• Contractions type naturally — thats → that's, dont → don't, youre → you're. No more holding L for an apostrophe.
• Manage added words is now a top-level Settings entry, grouped by language, with a per-language +.
• The strip was rearranged to fit the mic: [🙂] [+] [ suggestions ] [EN] [🎤]. The gear is gone — long-press the language chip to open Settings.

Fixed

• Typing certain words could wipe the whole field. On English, a word whose prefix was itself a dictionary word (e.g. typing Cla in a search box) could clear everything you'd typed. Inherited from upstream TT9.
• A microphone that couldn't be stopped. Pressing the mic twice during the model load could start a second engine and leave the first one's microphone open. Caught in review before release.
• Suggestions are now ordered by how many keys you actually pressed.

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Installs over v1.1.1 and keeps your dictionaries and settings. Full history in CHANGELOG.md.

v1.1.1 — on-demand dictionary fix

Patch release fixing on-demand dictionary downloads.

Fixed

• Non-bundled languages (Dutch, Italian, Polish, and the other on-demand dictionaries) failed to load in 1.1 with a SecurityException. The app was missing the INTERNET permission and the download URL was stale. Both are fixed — you can now add any supported language, not just the eight bundled ones.
• Bundled languages such as English were never affected.

If you hit the error on 1.1, update to 1.1.1 and re-try the language download.

Full changelog: https://github.com/oliverpalonkorp/SideType/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md

SideType v1.1

Predictive typing for the Sidephone SP-01 Compact QWERTY tile, in 30+ Latin-script languages.

Added

• Emoji & symbol drawer — an on-screen picker with Emoji/Symbols tabs and categories. Since it covers the text field, it has a live preview bar so you can still see what you're typing, plus haptic and visual feedback on every tap.
• Bind symbols to keys — hold SYM + a key to type a glyph you've pinned to it. The bind picker now has an Emoji/Symbols toggle, so you can assign any symbol (@, #, €, —, …), not just emoji.

Changed

• Download size cut ~7× (219 MB → 32 MB). Eight common dictionaries (English, German, French, Spanish, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish) ship bundled; the other 20+ Latin-script languages download on demand the first time you pick them.
• On-screen keyboard drag-to-resize now defaults off — you type on the physical tile. Re-enable it in Settings if you want the on-screen keyboard.

Fixed

• Emoji/symbol drawer no longer extends behind the system navigation bar.

Removed

• Non-Latin-script dictionaries (Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, CJK, etc.), which weren't typeable on the Latin Compact QWERTY tile anyway. This is what shrank the download.

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Install: download SideType-v1.1.apk below and open it (allow "install unknown apps"), or add this repo to Obtainium for automatic updates. Installs alongside your existing keyboard.

SideType v1.0

SideType is a free, open-source predictive keyboard for the Sidephone SP-01 Compact QWERTY tile — a fork of Traditional T9 adapted to the tile's two-letters-per-key layout.

Highlights

• 30+ Latin-script languages (Finnish, Swedish, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Turkish, Czech, Portuguese, Dutch, and more). Accented letters "ride along" on their base key — ä/å on A, ö on O — so predictive text spells words correctly.
• Tap the language chip (EN / FI / DE…) on the keyboard strip to switch language instantly.
• Pin emoji to keys, with a categorized picker and key-reference preview.
• Add-your-own-words dictionary, symbols page, case cycling, and a settings shortcut right on the strip.
• Installs alongside stock TT9 / JakeType — different app id (fi.palonkorpi.sidetype), nothing is replaced.
• Fully offline. No tracking, no ads.

Install

1. Download SideType-v1.0.apk below, open it, allow "install unknown apps".
2. Enable it: Settings → System → Languages & input → On-screen keyboard → Manage → SideType, then pick it in the keyboard switcher.
3. Recommended for updates: install Obtainium, add this repo's URL, and it'll notify you of every new release.

⚠️ Early release

The layouts for all these languages were generated automatically and validated by the build, but only a few (English, Finnish, German) have been hand-tested. If you hit a wrong accent or odd prediction, please open an issue — say which language, what you typed, and what you expected. Fixes are usually quick.

Credits

Standing on the shoulders of Dimo Karaivanov and the Traditional T9 contributors. SideType is GPL-3.0, same as upstream.