iOS 16 Quietly Adds Native Dvorak Keyboard Support

Dvorak keyboard support was a delightful iOS 16 feature we almost missed. This week, Ars Technica revealed that Apple’s software now offers a touch-typing keyboard alongside QWERTY, AZERTY, and QWERTZ. Dvorak for iOS used to require an additional keyboard or third-party software.

What’s New?

Dvorak’s key benefit is evenly distributing touch typing workload across all fingers. It puts all vowels on the left side of the keyboard’s home row and the most utilized consonants on the right, making them faster and easier to reach.

You use your thumbs on a smartphone keyboard. QWERTY weirdly fills in the most common letters, which helps. Less thumb collision, right?

What’s More?

The missing keys on the top left of the iOS Dvorak keyboard make it look weird, as shown in the screenshot above. Because the iPhone keyboard hides punctuation signs (apostrophe, comma, and period) in a submenu, these normally handle them.

Digging Into More Details

Steve Wozniak agrees that Dvorak on the iPhone is excellent. The Apple co-founder learned the layout from Fake Typewriter Dvorak on a flight to Tokyo in the early 1990s. “I spent 5 hours learning it and never looked at a QWERTY keyboard again,” he stated ass. “That’s it.”

To try Dvorak iOS 16, go to Settings, General, Keyboard, and “Keyboards” on your iPhone. Select your language to see Dvorak as a layout option.