Redesigning the macOS On-Screen Keyboard
I got bored of the macOS on-screen keyboard that I have been using for years. I had a brainwave and decided to redesign it. I knew nothing about SwiftUI or Swift, so I obviously got my partner-in-getting-shit-done to build it for me.
So far, I have been using the mac's built-in accessibility keyboard since 2022.
Last year, I built September, a communication assistant for myself to talk to my son and wife. But by the time I switched to a browser, opened the app, and typed out the message, my 8-year-old son's attention would have left the room. Also, my son started taking advantage of the long pauses to auto-approve permissions for things I might need him to do. He will walk into my room, ask me something, and immediately loudly declare "Mom, dad said okay! I can have 6 chocolates now".
You see where this is going.
So my big idea was to build everything - typing, my voice, notes, stories, etc. - all into one on-screen keyboard.
I used Pencil, a Claude-powered design tool, to try to give some shape to my ideas. After some back-and-forth, Claude came up with these designs.
You can read the full conversation here. The transcript is generated by Chitragupt, yet another brainwave recently built by my ghost-coder.
We are living in incredible times where there are absolutely no barriers to building anything. If we can imagine it, AI can build it.
I can't type with my hands, I use a head-mounted mouse and every click takes 0.8 seconds. Yet, Claude allows me to build at incredible speed.
What's your excuse?