Swiftkey virtual keyboard dispenses with need for space bar

[editor]

One of the things that I missed from my HTC that isn't on the S3 is the mini trackball that lets you move the curser back and forth across the text. With Go Keyboard it gives you a set of arrows for moving the cursor forward, backward, up and down. I don't see that on your picture of Swiftkey. Gwan go download it and check it out. It is free.

I really am very happy with SwiftKey, thanks.

 

[Firky]

I can't get away with swiping typing, feels counter intuitive against my 25+ years of typing on a QWERTY keyboard.

I do like SwiftKey though, it isn't leaps and bounds ahead of the one Android comes with but what is good is it that it learns your style of speech. So it can quite accurately guess your sentence, most used adjectives etc. This allows you to complete a sentence or two with only a couple of taps.

The problem I have with ALL touchscreen keyboards is they're feck useless in the rain or with damp fingers and you're required to look at the screen the whole time.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

The great thing with such keyboards is that you can make surrealist poetry by doing random swipes across the keyboard.

Quilts boughs Rep brewery Wacky outright courtship affidavits disk on allow well pollutant seesalter Hank youthful dad's wack oily pox

 

[editor]

Sometimes I just let SwiftKey suggest what words I'm going to write. So long as the meaning is vaguely similar to what I wanted to say, that's fine by me

 

[fogbat]

How good does this new update look?!

Excellent! I've always used Swype, but it's been fucked on my S3 since I upgraded to Jellybean.

 

[pesh]

does it or any other app have a corrective rather than predictive text option along the lines of the iphone?

using the stock Samsung text message app i'm getting sick of trying to type the word 'on' only to miss the n and have it change the word to Obama.

 

[Firky]

SwiftKey corrects your spelling.

 

[pesh]

cheers, have installed it and it's brilliant. the stock Samsung one is beyond shite.

 

[editor]

The latest version is nothing short of astonishing.

 

[magneze]

The new Swype-style gestures are pretty neat.

It's a UK startup too. Well worth supporting.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/20/swiftkey_4_overview/

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

possibly unrelated: what keyboard app do I get for android which does arrows so I can scroll back when sshing to a server for repetitive task the syntax of which I might still not have remembered.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

possibly unrelated: what keyboard app do I get for android which does arrows so I can scroll back when sshing to a server for repetitive task the syntax of which I might still not have remembered.

'Go Keyboard' has arrows for going back and forward as well as up and down. It also has the flowing line similar to Swiftkey. It is free. The arrows work fine on notepad software but the left/right arrows seem to die when using it on Urban75 forums although the up/down ones are fine.

 

[2hats]

The latest version is nothing short of astonishing.

This alone stops me from ever wanting to go back to an iphone (the keyboard of which I find almost unusable, certainly frustrating to use by comparison).

 

[Chz]

The new Swype-style gestures are pretty neat.

It's a UK startup too. Well worth supporting.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/20/swiftkey_4_overview/

They're worth supporting because it's an awesome product, full stop. It's already one of the top-selling apps in Android's entire history.

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

'Go Keyboard' has arrows for going back and forward as well as up and down. It also has the flowing line similar to Swiftkey. It is free. The arrows work fine on notepad software but the left/right arrows seem to die when using it on Urban75 forums although the up/down ones are fine.

Thanks I'll give it a go and report if it works for my particular purpose.
e2a: then again maybe not, google play refuses to load :/
e2e2: got it, tried it: does what I need, thanks

 

[kittyP]

I saw that mine had updated yesterday but I can't see any difference.
I didn't know it did swipe too
I'll have to go look at the settings and see what's changed
It is bloody brilliant.

 

[dervish]

I bought swiftkey ages ago and didn't really like it. Every now and then I try it again, decide I don't like it still and go back to stock.

I've been trying a new ROM, which although is great doesn't have the standard stock keyboard, so I try a few alternatives, none of which are very good, and eventually decide to try swiftkey again, the main reason I didn't like swiftkey was the size of the keyboard and the fact you counldn't swipe the keys.

I think I have just found my new standard keyboard, it's fast, gets most of the words I'm going for and now has resizable keys. Oh and the swipe over the spacebar for a new word works better than I expected it to. Very happy, love having the choice.

 

[dervish]

The problem I have with ALL touchscreen keyboards is they're feck useless in the rain or with damp fingers and you're required to look at the screen the whole time.

Actually that's what I like about swipe keyboards, you can usually get most of the words out without having to look at the keyboard so much.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

I bought swiftkey ages ago and didn't really like it. Every now and then I try it again, decide I don't like it still and go back to stock.

I've been trying a new ROM, which although is great doesn't have the standard stock keyboard, so I try a few alternatives, none of which are very good, and eventually decide to try swiftkey again, the main reason I didn't like swiftkey was the size of the keyboard and the fact you counldn't swipe the keys.

I think I have just found my new standard keyboard, it's fast, gets most of the words I'm going for and now has resizable keys. Oh and the swipe over the spacebar for a new word works better than I expected it to. Very happy, love having the choice.

Yes but you haven't said what it is called. Or are you saying that Swiftkey now works with your new ROM which again you haven't named.

 

[dervish]

I didn't think the ROM name was relevant. FYI it's Foxhound, available here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=27355029 and yes, Swiftkey works fine with it, as a standard app I would expect it to.

 

[editor]

This is a fantastic innovation that's going to put Android miles ahead of the iPhone.

 

[Elvis Parsley]

just tried it on my phone, utterly impossible and silly. i take it this came out today?

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

sounds awesome. am not going to try it.

 

[dervish]

They only did this so they could do a Harlem Shake a-like

 

[UnderOpenSky]

Swiftkey is the first app I install on a new phone and I've been using it for years now. I see it's just been bought by Microsoft. Lets hope they don't do anything to mess it up.

Microsoft buys SwiftKey, Britain's 'stealthiest software startup'

 

[2hats]

Ah, that would begin to explain why it's now next to f&cking useless these days...

 

[kabbes]

I'm liking the sound of this. Based on Markov chaining, it seems.

Markov chain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Underneath all the impenetrable maths in that page, the basic idea is that you predict what is about to happen based on known prior patterns.

Response to 4 year old post but...
Predicting based on past patterns is the opposite of a Markov chain!

 

[UnderOpenSky]

Ah, that would begin to explain why it's now next to f&cking useless these days...

What do you find has changed? I've not noticed it get any worse.

 

[2hats]

What do you find has changed? I've not noticed it get any worse.

Last few months it increasingly seems to autocorrect to random words 'of the moment' which wouldn't look out of place in the twitter entropy pool (an obsession with vacuous celebrities in particular though also other non-dictionary words that I've never typed before), randomly capitalises words mid-sentence and seems to fail to learn words (even when explicitly taught multiple times). Other correspondents of mine have noted similar behaviour.

I've tried clearing typing data, re-installing it, disabling all cloud options, but to no avail.

A year plus ago it worked a treat with only occasional manual correction. I now suspect I waste at least as much time proofreading and correcting what it has helped create as it would take me to simply tap out the message one letter at a time (which I increasingly now find myself doing anyway). Possibly it is far worse in some instant messaging apps than in simple note taking apps (is an impression I tend to get).

 

[twentythreedom]

Anyone having trouble with SK recently? It's gone shit