ThickButtons to Hit Apple Store This September

LVIV, UKRAINE, September 16, 2014 (Newswire.com) - ThickButtons, a mobile application that makes typing on touchscreen phones more accurate by enlarging the keys for the users, is expanding to provide better typing experience for iDevices with iOS 8 upcoming release. A self-funded company of six employees, ThickButtons has continuously developed since 2008, owns a patent for the technology and offers licensing for mobile phone and platform manufacturers. Currently, the application has over 800,000 downloads on Google Play and features support for 32 languages including English, Spanish, Arabic, Korean, Russian and Hebrew.

About the technology

My large-hand colleague who normally loathes typing anything more than a few words on his Android phone found it to be a major improvement as well.

Ginny Mies, PCWorld

The keyboards provided by phone manufacturers have small buttons, which results in multiple misspellings that are being fixed with imperfect automatic spelling correction algorithms. Custom keyboards, on the other hand, make users adopt new input methods while consumers want that the technology adapts to their needs not the other way around. ThickButtons found the way to make the buttons bigger. As you type, ThickButtons enlarges and highlights buttons, which you will most likely press next and shrinks the remaining ones, reducing the chance of making an error (especially on touchscreen phones with small and medium-sized screens).

While the underlying science and algorithms are complicated, the interface is simple: unlike most dictionary-based prediction technologies that guess the full word during the typing process, ThickButtons finds it much easier to predict the letters unlikely to be used and make them smaller, leaving rest of the text more accessible. With ThickButtons technology, the size of a phone screen is less of an issue because the buttons are enlarged.

Main benefits

No Change in Typing Habits: ThickButtons does not ask users to change their typing behaviors by learning a new way to type. Some of the recent predictive typing technologies in the industry include training steps and involve a learning curve before users become familiar with the process. With ThickButtons, just type the same way you have all your life.

Less Dependent on Dictionary: Traditional prediction-based technologies are effective only when a significant part of the word is entered. ThickButtons is unique because it begins working after just a few letters are entered. Less relevant buttons shrink and the buttons more likely to be used become larger. In some cases there is no dependency on the dictionary at all. For example, if a user presses backspace, three adjacent keys are enlarged offering a workaround for the most common mistakes.

Easy to Type Even on Small Screens: ThickButtons technology accommodates users of smartphones with small screens. No matter the size of a screen, ThickButtons becomes large enough for people to still use their fingers to type, eliminating the need for a stylus.

Features

- Easy to type on touchscreens of any size;
- No need to learn a new typing method;
- Low dependency on the dictionary;
- Easy to correct mistakes.

Recognition

PCWorld: "My large-hand colleague who normally loathes typing anything more than a few words on his Android phone found it to be a major improvement as well. The letters enlarge enough so anyone--with any hand size--can easily type."

CNet: "The effect is subtle but effective. When I tried it at first I didn't even notice what was going on. But it works, and the smaller the screen (or the fatter your fingers), the better".

Wired: "It's an interesting spin on the predictive text input technology. Instead of trying to predict the full word during the typing process - as most predictive text systems do - ThickButtons highlights the next few letters that you are likely to use to create the word".

Lifehacker: "I'm finding it more useful and less intrusive (or slow) than HTC's Sense keyboard or Swype".

Founders

Dimitri Lisitski, CEO & Co-Founder
Dimitri Lisitski is CEO and co-founder of Thickbuttons. Lisitski oversees business, product and marketing activities for Thickbuttons. Prior to Thickbuttons Lisitski founded BrightSide Software, a software company focused on the enterprise 2.0 software. Prior to BrightSide, Lisitski was a co-founder of BonutTec, a New Jersey based software product engineering company focused on telecom and wireless industries. Since its acquisition in 2006 by GlobalLogic, Lisitski served as VP of Finance and Corporate Development being responsible for M&A in the Eastern Europe. Lisitski has started his career in Starcom media agency and has more than 8 years of experience in marketing and media. Lisitski is a co-founder of Startup Crash Test initiative. Lisitski holds M.S. in Applied Math and B.S. in finance from T. Shevchenko State Kiev University.

Andrew Pavliv, CTO & Co-Founder
Andrew Pavliv is CTO and co-founder of Thickbuttons. As CTO, Pavliv overseas all technology functions and is responsible for all software updates, product inquires and information technology-related initiatives. Prior to Thickbuttons, Pavliv co-founded IM-History and G-Recorder, instant messaging related startups which use Cloud Computing to consolidate and store track record of all Instant Messaging conversations and N-iX, a software engineering and information technology services company. In addition, Pavliv currently responsible for international business development at N-iX as well as new products initiatives and investment opportunities. Pavliv has more than six years of research and development and over five years of business development and management in the technology sector, serving global companies such as Novell, SteamServe, SiCortex and Anoto Group. Pavliv graduated Lviv National University and holds a master degree in software engineering.

Contact

Please send all inquiries to: [email protected]