SwiftKey Flow keyboard takes the fight to Swype with predictive gestures (video)
SwiftKey must be keen to finish its bout with Swype, as it just went for the knockout. It's launching SwiftKey Flow, an extension of its Android keyboard that blends SwiftKey's familiar word prediction with the hold-and-swipe gestures we most commonly associate with the company's arch-rival. Speed-minded typists now just have to glide across the virtual keys and let go as soon as Flow makes a correct guess. They don't have to pick a typing mode and stick with it, either, as both gestures and the usual taps will work at the same time. Prospective testers will want to sign up today for the SwiftKey Flow beta starting in the next few weeks. Everyone else, though, might want to watch from the bleachers -- the new parallels between SwiftKey and Swype just made this fight infinitely more entertaining.
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SwiftKey Flow Brings Gesture Input to Android's Best-Selling Keyboard
London, UK -- Oct 25, 2012 - The team behind Android's best-selling keyboard today unveils SwiftKey Flow, a new typing approach that combines the mind-reading capabilities of SwiftKey's engine with the ability to glide your finger across a phone's screen to type words.
The new feature harnesses the unrivaled predictive power of SwiftKey to give a completely new take on continuous input, offering real-time prediction as a user begins to 'flow' a word on the keys. This allows the word to be inputted by simply letting go of the screen as soon as the word is predicted, saving valuable time and effort. The user is also able to select relevant next-word predictions based on SwiftKey's knowledge of their writing habits.
SwiftKey Flow has been engineered to simultaneously support both the traditional multi-touch tapping style as well as gliding. This empowers the user to seamlessly switch between the two modes as they please, 'flowing' a quick text if they only have one hand free, or tapping out a longer note with both hands at speed. Add the fact that SwiftKey constantly predicts the next word in a sentence and the user may not even have to tap or flow at all for some words.
A video of SwiftKey Flow in action is available on the SwiftKey blog, and the app's team plan to start beta testing it with their VIP community within weeks. Anyone wishing to take part is encouraged to sign up at http://www.swiftkey.net/flow
SwiftKey CEO Jon Reynolds said: "We know our users have different tastes and habits - this way they'll get to choose what style of writing suits them best without compromising the power of the predictions. We've been hard at work on SwiftKey Flow over the last year and it's great to finally be able to give you a sneak peek. I'm confident our users will be blown away once they get their hands on it."
SwiftKey Flow is the latest innovation from the London-based company, which recently celebrated hitting 15 million downloads of its original SwiftKey app. A No.1 best selling app on Google Play in 30 countries, SwiftKey is available in 44 languages and counting.
Using cutting-edge artificial intelligence, SwiftKey Flow learns as it is used to build a personalized prediction profile specific to each user. This can be improved by giving the keyboard access to a user's SMS, email, Facebook and Twitter archives. When writing a text, email or tweet, the profile is used to correct typos in context, predict a word as it is being traced, or suggest the most likely next word in a sentence. SwiftKey correctly predicts 30 percent of next words before any characters are entered, and 84 percent of next words are correctly predicted after just two characters. The engine is so powerful, it is capable of predicting in up to three languages at once.
