Just four days since the release of the Beta version of the app on Android Google play store, the app already has 5000+ downloads.
To keep Tangkhul language breathing with the updating technology and to dust off the primitive, Āva̱ramtui has gifted the Tangkhul community by developing an app with a humble feature that adds the letters, Ā and A̱, unique to Tangkhul language, to everyday text conversations. The app also includes an auto-suggestion feature which will be slowly expanded to include more words from the Tangkhul vocabulary with new updates to make typing easier.
Texting in Tangkhul is anything but easy, especially with the normal Roman letters slash English keyboards. One has to struggle with auto correct and spelling checks which slows down texting speed by a lot and can be frustrating at times.
Tangkhul language phonetically varies from English and needs extra characters, hence, two additional character Ā and A̱ were incorporated not so long ago. These additional characters are imperative in giving meaning to the language.
Āva̱ramtui keyboard will hopefully capture the diversity and promote the language further.
The Ukhrul based team is planning to add more features in the future like word suggestion, prediction and voice to text.
Āva̱ramtui Tangkhul Keyboard software application project started from August 14, 2021. The Beta version of the app is currently at its developmental phase. The purpose for this is to weed out the unknown bugs which the app is likely to contain and to polish the app with enhanced improvements.
Users who have downloaded the Beta app are encouraged to report and give feedback of their experiences. The app is available only for Android users as of now.
Speaking to Ukhrul Times, Ngashangam Zingyo, Founder and Director, Āva̱ramtui told that the keyboard project initially set out with crowdfunding after negotiations with a developer team, but due to some setbacks the team failed to deliver a satisfiable result during test and was deemed unfeasible. Āva̱ramtui is now currently partnering with Lipee Indic Technologies Pvt Ltd, a Goa based startup. The startup gives special focus on creating technologies and services for Indic languages and scripts. The developers of the Lipee Indic Devnagari Keyboard, which also supports Hindi and Marathi languages (with 220,000+ downloads) is available on Google Play Store.
Also read: How Ngashanngam Zingyo is Trying to Create Rejuvenating Waves of Āva̱ramtui
Speaking on the arrangements with developers and revenue strategy, founder, Ngashangam zingyo said, after the setback with the first developers, Āva̱ramtui has teamed up with Lipee Indic Technologies to create this app and the cost of creation and further feature and software updates would be redeemed through revenues from Ads.
“Adding Ads was definitely not our first choice and we regret not being able to hold on to the end of our promise of keeping it Ad free during the crowdfunding. However during the setback with our first developer team, we lost the luxury to make the app Ad free and we regret the inconvenience. The revenue made from the Ad would be used to redeem the cost of creating the app and will also be utilised for further feature and software updates. We sincerely hope the public will sympathies with this predicament,” said Zingyo.
The final finished product version of the app may come out after a month or so if all the factors like bug reports, crash etc satisfies the test. The app will be released once the stability of the app is ascertained, added the founder.
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