Yet another high-speed keyboard enters the Android Market today, with Swiftkey releasing a free beta version of their Android keyboard.
Just like Swype and Shapewriter before it, Swiftkey promises a faster, more accurate, and generally happier typing experience on your Android handset. Unlike Swype or Shapewriter, however, it doesn’t hope to change the way you type.
Swiftkey is still a normal tap-tappity keyboard, only it’s paired with a much better predictive text engine. Much, much better. You see, it not only offers the usual spell-correction and auto-complete of words, it goes so far as to offer the most likely word you will type next. It’s like a psychic, only for less money.
Swiftkey does this by (along with pre-programmed voodoo) scanning your text messages to find out how you speak. It’s 4 parts cool to 1 part creepy. And I like that in a partner an app.
I’ve been playing with it for the last 10 minutes or so, typing out imaginary to-do lists (“challenge unicorn to fight”), imaginary love letters (“Dear Jessica Rabbit…”), and imaginary headlines (“Unicorn slayer Simon weds Jessica Rabbit!”), and it seems to be doing well.
The real test, of course, is if I’m still using it next month. I’ve previously tried Shapewriter (but not Swype) and I lasted about a fortnight. I’ll try to remember to update this post in a week-or-so to tell you if I’m still using it, and why/why not.
And with that, my fellow Android peeps, go forth and download. It’s certainly worth a try.
[via Engadget]