The software and language engineers at Swiftkey have been toiling on this app for the past two years, and at long last, it's being made available for precisely nothing to anxious Android users. Hot on the heels of Swype's own beta, the Swiftkey beta is now available to download directly from the App Market, and once installed (along with language packs of your choice), it can be used in place of your stock Android soft keyboard. We've never been the biggest fan of Google's factory keys, and while we still feel that Swiftkey's letters are a tad on the skinny side, it's definitely an improvement. But that's not where the magic's at -- this software has an uncanny ability to guess what your next word will be, and it actually looks at your prior SMS list (if allowed) in order to "learn" how you converse. In our early tests, we're pretty darn impressed, and yes, it's definitely worth the $0.00 price tag. Get your download on right now, or hop past the break for a video demonstration if you still need convincing.
huh, weird. I'm in the UK on Virgin using a Samsung Galaxy S. Just searched for this in the market, found nothing. Then I scanned the barcode in the link higher up the page. Came back "item does not exist" or something similar.
Time limited beta? (states on the market) Presume that means the next app update for this will have ads etc integrated into the messages or scrolling along the bottom. No thanks the stock keypad isn't that bad on the desire certainly not worth upgradingfor apps. Only a guess but I would not bet against it happening.
I'm running on a Droid Eris, Rooted, and on Verizon, and it's not showing up for me in the market... Did Google remove it or something? I really want to try this out, Swype has been getting on my nerves lately.
@JakeG895 I just tried along with the video for comparison. I'm a good bit faster than the swiftkey one and a TON faster than the "stock" one using my iPhone 4. Of course, that doesn't mean i wouldn't be even faster if I were using the Swiftkey one :)
@darksharpie ooohhhhh fml living in australia, i have to wait and see when iphone is coming out, i know it will be this month but i hate waiting! have you had any reception problems with it yet if so do u have sweaty hands. i don't think it will happen to me. firstly coz i don't plan on squeezing my iphone and secondly my hands don't really sweat. how is it? are you impressed with the camera/video camera. is the screen as amazing as they make it look? should i get one?
I could get it if I realy want. Like I got the original iPhone shipped over, but I have used Htc/android phones before, don't get me wrong android is great but I just don't like it. It may be more powerful than ios but I don't like the dark interface, that seems cluterd and out of order, wouldent mind owning an android to get used to it but I still use the iPhone way more. Btw I don't care about widgits or friend stream crap.
Using it now to type this commment on my Inc. Works very well and the prediction is really amazing. Works as advertised. Better than Sense UI with one game changing exception. It lacks the voice input key (for obvious reasons?). I cannot use my phone effectively without the option of voice input. I will have to switch back to Sender UI.
@JakeG895 I have a 3GS. It was given to me when a friend received her 4. I use it (jailbreak) as a wifi device and a ipod. Both keyboards, sense ui and swiftkey, is better.
Works really well. I may not have to get a physical keyboarded next time... The only drawback is it takes up more screen real estate than the stock does, but not an unacceptable amount.
So far I am really enjoying SwiftKey. I think it looks really good and so far the predictive text has been impressive actually predicting what I was going to say even before I started typing it.
Is anyone else having the issue where as soon as the keyboard pops it goes away? its really annoying... and the word prediction also comes up at the bottom of the screen when I open my G1 keyoard. It really gets in the way.
I played with it and it seems pretty cool, but I need the voice-to-text key on my Incredible so I uninstalled it. I'll re-download if/when they add that.
In terms of ease and accuracy of typing, this is definitely a major improvement over the stock keyboard. I'd say it's also better than Swype, which I've found to be nearly unusable. It's missing microphone input, but TBH that's something I rarely use anyway since most of the time it's slow, inaccurate and requires halting speech.
@Metacognition By "Google Voice" I assume you mean Google voice recognition. This seems to be a trend with 3rd party keyboards. Better keyboard, Swype, and this all lack the microphone button. I am not sure if it is because they think no one uses it, or if Google has disallowed it.
I miss the arrow buttons that come on the stock so I can move around my cursor. Microphone button would be nice too...even though for all practical purposes it's worthless.
Google's dictation ability is darn fast and pretty accurate if you talk relatively clearly; what takes 41 seconds in that video takes about 3 using dictation.
Just typed the same message using Swype Beta on my Droid. 34 Seconds. That's also without using any predictive text. I drew out every word in its entirety.
Sweet app! It actually works better than better keyboard, predictive text works well, but is kinda limited...it only gives three suggestions at a time, which is okay but still limited (I like the fact that you can scroll to find the word on better keyboard). The more it learns, the better it gets though I suppose, so if it nails it, you don't have to scroll which saves time. The fact that it's free is cool too. There's a lot of people bitching about physical keyboard integration, though. Hey folks, it's a virtual keyboard app, meant for virtual keyboards! People are giving it one star ratings based on that, which is complete nonsense. As a virtual keyboard app, it's awesome on my N1.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
posted July 14th 2010 3:43AM
Just downloaded it and sent a couple txts to the wife to test it out. I like it a lot better that the stock keyboard on the Cliq.
huh, weird. I'm in the UK on Virgin using a Samsung Galaxy S. Just searched for this in the market, found nothing. Then I scanned the barcode in the link higher up the page. Came back "item does not exist" or something similar.
weird....
Time limited beta? (states on the market)
Presume that means the next app update for this will have ads etc integrated into the messages or scrolling along the bottom.
No thanks the stock keypad isn't that bad on the desire certainly not worth upgradingfor apps. Only a guess but I would not bet against it happening.
I'm running on a Droid Eris, Rooted, and on Verizon, and it's not showing up for me in the market... Did Google remove it or something? I really want to try this out, Swype has been getting on my nerves lately.
damn why are they never putting the freakin microphone icon??
@aeonys agreed, love the keyboard but I must have the voice input.
Finally software that can predict our thoughts.
I could of typed that twice as fast as both of them on my iphone keyboard
@JakeG895 I just tried along with the video for comparison. I'm a good bit faster than the swiftkey one and a TON faster than the "stock" one using my iPhone 4. Of course, that doesn't mean i wouldn't be even faster if I were using the Swiftkey one :)
@darksharpie ooohhhhh fml living in australia, i have to wait and see when iphone is coming out, i know it will be this month but i hate waiting!
have you had any reception problems with it yet if so do u have sweaty hands. i don't think it will happen to me. firstly coz i don't plan on squeezing my iphone and secondly my hands don't really sweat.
how is it? are you impressed with the camera/video camera.
is the screen as amazing as they make it look?
should i get one?
@JakeG895 Since you live in Australia and can't get an Evo or an Epic, I guess you should settle 4 an iPhone 4.
I could get it if I realy want. Like I got the original iPhone shipped over, but I have used Htc/android phones before, don't get me wrong android is great but I just don't like it. It may be more powerful than ios but I don't like the dark interface, that seems cluterd and out of order, wouldent mind owning an android to get used to it but I still use the iPhone way more. Btw I don't care about widgits or friend stream crap.
@JakeG895
Root it and install another theme. I particularly like DarkStar, which reminds me of WebOS.
Using it now to type this commment on my Inc. Works very well and the prediction is really amazing. Works as advertised. Better than Sense UI with one game changing exception. It lacks the voice input key (for obvious reasons?). I cannot use my phone effectively without the option of voice input. I will have to switch back to Sender UI.
@incredibuyer
iphone is faster at typing.. you have to own one to get used to it then you get amazingly fast!
@JakeG895 I have a 3GS. It was given to me when a friend received her 4. I use it (jailbreak) as a wifi device and a ipod. Both keyboards, sense ui and swiftkey, is better.
@incredibuyer
Same here, I like on the stock Droid keyboard that I can just "swipe" over the keys and kick up the voice box.
It is an extra step, but you can hit the menu button, then pick speak.
Works really well. I may not have to get a physical keyboarded next time... The only drawback is it takes up more screen real estate than the stock does, but not an unacceptable amount.
So far I am really enjoying SwiftKey. I think it looks really good and so far the predictive text has been impressive actually predicting what I was going to say even before I started typing it.
I typed this comment from my N1 using SwiftKey.
Not bad :) Finding it difficult to switch from Swype though.
Is swype ever going to be released in Android market?
Is anyone else having the issue where as soon as the keyboard pops it goes away? its really annoying... and the word prediction also comes up at the bottom of the screen when I open my G1 keyoard. It really gets in the way.
I played with it and it seems pretty cool, but I need the voice-to-text key on my Incredible so I uninstalled it. I'll re-download if/when they add that.
In terms of ease and accuracy of typing, this is definitely a major improvement over the stock keyboard. I'd say it's also better than Swype, which I've found to be nearly unusable. It's missing microphone input, but TBH that's something I rarely use anyway since most of the time it's slow, inaccurate and requires halting speech.
Using a Droid 1 on VZW.
Eh, it's okay.
I'll form more opinions after more use.
Looks a lot like the HTC IME keyboard, which is a step above the stock Android keyboard by far. Would be interesting to try.
Hmmm, so far Swiftkey works pretty well. I think I'll table Swype for a few days and see how it goes.
lol@swiftkey not being able to do math.
itS _65.3%_ FASTER, not 41% faster. If I run 100m in 20 seconds, then i do it again in 10 seconds, im not going 50% faster, im going 100% faster.
actually, my bad. its 65.9% faster (i used 42 instead of 41 in my calclulation of (1/41)/(1/68), whoops)
It's pretty sweet but there's no option for google voice. Weak
@Metacognition By "Google Voice" I assume you mean Google voice recognition. This seems to be a trend with 3rd party keyboards. Better keyboard, Swype, and this all lack the microphone button. I am not sure if it is because they think no one uses it, or if Google has disallowed it.
@whosdadog In SlideIT you can activate it in the options. I chose not to because I prefer to type and my phone is too slow anyway.
love it
I miss the arrow buttons that come on the stock so I can move around my cursor. Microphone button would be nice too...even though for all practical purposes it's worthless.
Google's dictation ability is darn fast and pretty accurate if you talk relatively clearly; what takes 41 seconds in that video takes about 3 using dictation.
I installed it on my HTC Eris. I prefer HTC's keyboard, but it was nice.
Just typed the same message using Swype Beta on my Droid. 34 Seconds. That's also without using any predictive text. I drew out every word in its entirety.
Sweet app! It actually works better than better keyboard, predictive text works well, but is kinda limited...it only gives three suggestions at a time, which is okay but still limited (I like the fact that you can scroll to find the word on better keyboard). The more it learns, the better it gets though I suppose, so if it nails it, you don't have to scroll which saves time. The fact that it's free is cool too. There's a lot of people bitching about physical keyboard integration, though. Hey folks, it's a virtual keyboard app, meant for virtual keyboards! People are giving it one star ratings based on that, which is complete nonsense. As a virtual keyboard app, it's awesome on my N1.