Android and iOS users have been able to use third-party keyboards for a while now by simply downloading them straight from the Play Store or App Store respectively. These keyboards provided their own unique features and experience for users, and most importantly gave them a choice.
Swype, one of the most popular third-party keyboard for iOS and Android, has been discontinued today. Nuance made the announcement following a post on Reddit where a user claims that during a conversation with Nuance support he received the following message:
However, we are sad to announce that Swype+Dragon for Android has faced end of development. Here is a statement from Swype Product Team:
Nuance will no longer be updating the Swype+Dragon keyboard for Android. We’re sorry to leave the direct-to-consumer keyboard business, but this change is necessary to allow us to concentrate on developing our AI solutions for sale directly to businesses.
We hope you enjoyed using Swype, we sure enjoyed working with the Swype community.
The iOS app was confirmed to be discontinued on this ZenDesk post.
The announcement wasn’t too surprising since Nuance has been heavily focused on its direct-to-business applications.
Users of the Swype keyboard will no longer be receiving any updates to the app. If you are looking for an alternative third-party keyboard, I would highly recommend Google’s Gboard as it contains a lot of the features you likely used in Swype.
[via xda-developers]
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Does anybody use a third-party keyboard? I tried Swype a few times back in the day, but I always end up moving back to the default iOS one.
Yes, I use Swype and Gboard. Gboard works pretty good all around, beside the updating was really bad. Had to uninstall and reinstall many time with each updates like they never tested that part. But now it’s looks OK.
But like, what’s different/better than iOS default? That makes it worthwhile to go download a third party app, and then make sure it’s always enabled, etc? Can you type faster than me, or what?
Yes, I type faster with it. You also need only one finger to do it. It’s free, why don’t you try it and have a new option on it?
Nope. Always found typing easier. Also, I hated the idea of the loss of privacy. Every single thing you type potentially being sent off and analyzed by a 3rd party…no thanks.
I guess it would come down to the company providing the service back end. Nuance I would trust. Apple I would trust. Maybe MS I would trust. But Google, Amazon or most smallish companies, I probably would not.
Missed an opportunity for the headline to be: Swyper, no swyping!
Gboard is great, except for frequently crashing to the default iOS keyboard.
Swype stability was far worse than GBoard for me. Crashing to default keyboard would’ve been nice whenever it actually locked up in Messages and I couldn’t even switch keyboards without killing the app.
I use Swiftkey. Great if you need to type in 2 languages interchangeably. It auto-corrects in both languages without you having to change language.
I kept hoping Nuance would improve Swype stability, because there’s a couple things that made it superior to GBoard.
Thanks for the heads up. I was getting frustrated with Swype lack of updates. Trying gboard now and it’s very similar. So far so good!