Android News
Have you installed Swype? Are you convinced its the next greatest thing in virtual keyboards?
July 2, 2010 | by Robert Nelson
Android Apps
The Swype keyboard has been around for a little while now, though its only been available for everyone to download on a limited basis. Personally I picked it up a few months back (when it first opened for the public) and since then have come to really love it. Admittedly though, it did take me some time. I ended up spending the first two or three days thinking that I was about to switch back to the regular keyboard at any second. But then it clicked, and after that I have become attached to Swype. So much so that I find myself trying to Swype on other touchscreen devices and getting frustrated when its not there.
Anyway, my thoughts aside, New York Times columnist David Pogue recently posted some of his own thoughts on Swype. His post on Swype spilled out from a review of the Droid X and needless to say he does not seem sold on the idea. And while I would agree that everyone is entitled to their own opinion I have to differ on this.
That said, after reading his post on the Sywpe keyboard and despite loving it myself, he made some valid points. For example;
“you lose a corresponding amount of speed when you’re having to bounce back and forth from one side of the keyboard to the other, as in the word “soaks” (that’s four complete horizontal traverses).”
It makes sense, personally I never really thought of it like that. Of course, I think in my mind I am using Swype for the convenience in typing one handed and not necessarily for the speed.
What is your opinion on Swype? Love it, hate it, or maybe you have totally ignored it thinking it was stupid.
[via NYT]
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I like the keyboard in general, but there are two distinct things that I find highly annoying. 1. There isn’t a Mic button for Voice->Text. I’ve gotten into the habit of using it, and it’s annoying to find it missing from the swype keyboard. I would gladly trade a Mic button for the Swype info button. 2. The suggested words is a big opaque list that sits right overtop anything you are typing. I would much prefer having a horizontal scrolling list, similar to the stock android keyboard. Other than that, it is quite amazing how well it figures out my doodles.
Agreed – needs the voice-to-text feature added. Otherwise it as amazing!
<3 Love it <3 Love it <3 Love it <3 I curse when I pick up a smartphone that doesn't have it. I've gotten a lot of non-techie people hooked on Droid, and when I show them Swype they are ecstatic at the speed at which they can create text. In its vertical orientation, I've always found Swype to be much faster than tapping. The only time I've found swyping to be (just slightly) more time consuming than tapping is when my Droid is horizontally oriented. That's when you really notice a word like 'soak' that has a lot of back and forth action. Swype's technique is derives the most benefit when the keyboard is as compact as possible. I believe it is mentioned in the forums on Swype's website that somebody actually broke the texting world record using Swype. I wouldn't be surprised if that were true.
One advantage that Swype has over all other keyboards is that It has the editing screen with some great editing functions, including the navigation keys. As anyone has tried to edit text on an Android device that does not have a trackball or D-pad knows, it’s terribly frustrating to try to get the cursor in the correct place. With the nav keys on the Swype keyboard it’s just as quick as a trackball.
I'm a big fan. I kept bouncing between my Moto Droid's physical keyboard, stock keyboard and better keyboard, and couldn't settle on any of them as something I found comfortable for typing > 1 sentence email. I can't believe how accurate Swype is. I use it exclusively vertically, sometimes one handed. Maybe I'm stupid, but I can't seem to get words out of the dictionary, and it sometimes covers up the text I am trying to enter into a web page…so there is room for improvement, I expect that to come with time.
I HATED Swype when I got MyTouch ver.2. I instantly switched back to the default keyboard.
I love it.. I think it’s one of those things you have to make yourself use for good amount of time and then you won’t look back. When I got my iPad, it was weird NOT to swype on it
Hmm, maybe Swype should make a Dvorak keyboard version for Mr. Pogue, hehe. I luv Swype!
Does anybody else have issues with words that have double letters (end in "LL", etc.)? That's really the one thing that I keep having to re-enter and on occasion I've gotten really annoyed with it. Other than than, I like Swype a lot.
That stumped me as well. If you go through the tutorial though, it tells you that to do a double letter, you need to loop or squiggle on the letter you want duplicated.
Double letters: rarely work unles u go very slowly. Try to spiel”all” and usually get “ask” (???). O2her pet peeves: try to swype the word “or” 5 times, you may get it once (“out”, “our”…). this was swyped on a Droid X. All mis spiels courtesy of SWYPE.
It's okay. I had to tweak the settings a bit so that the suggested words never ever come up. I'm not as aware of the texting efficiency as you guys. It's just a cool add-on; nothing revolutionary. Cool keyboard though.
It took me several tries to get it working on my EVO, but now? LOVE it! I have longer nails and it's hard to turn my fingers to the side just right to hit the proper keys when I'm texting so the heat from my fingers activates the keyboard. With Swype, it's very forgiving and I can text twice as fast as I could without. It took some getting used to as well, but I wouldn't be without it now. (Now, if HTC would give you the option of standard touch or the heat of your fingers on the phone, I'd be a really happy camper)
I loved the idea of Swype when I saw the first video. Couldn't wait for the beta to reopen and went for another product in the app store "SlideIT" Might be that I just got more used to SlideIT first, but when I compare the two, SlideIT kicks butt. I find it just works better for me (word recognition, etc) right out of the box with no tweaks to the settings. Also, it DOES now include the microphone button like the standard android keyboard. Schweet! My recent post The Curses of Knowledge and Egocentricity
I use shape writer and love it. Had problems trying to get Swype on my phone originally so I've just stuck with what I had. Love it for one handed keyboard operation.
I type 50-50% in English and Hungarian. I had to stop using all dictionaries as most software does not offer quick switching between dictionary correction for English and no correction as all (as Hungarian dictionaries do not exist, and they would not be useful anyway given the huge amount of suffixes used in Hungarian. No way to guess the end of the word, not unless the software has extensive understanding of grammar which it doesn’t). I fear swipe will not help me for the same reason despite the fact that I am extremely interested.
I love the keyboard, however it does need a lot of getting used to. One major issue is that I have to (re)think about how a word is spelled w/ Swype while it's more intuitive on a regular keyboard because I am used to typing it on a physical keyboard.
Definitely put me in the Love category. Only downside is the lack of a microphone key. Sometimes talking is faster than any kind of keyboard and my Incredible voice recog is very, very good.
I use a G1 and have been stuck to the physical keyboard for a couple of years. I tried Swype for about 2 months and became acclimated to the program. However, I now use Shapewriter instead. It is much more predicative, I don't need to circle double letters, I don't need to drag off to create capital letters, and it is more forgiving than Swype by far.
I';m dyslexic I mainly spell words through mechanical memory. Swype makes me think far to much about the actual spelling of words. I'm much quicker just banging away at the keyboard with my thumbs without engaging my brain (at least not for the spelling part)
To be honest I can't stand Swype. I wish them all the luck in the world with their venture though, but it just doesn't function as well as the HTC keyboard I am using on my HTC Magic.
I love Swype!! My EVO is great but I found myself hating the keyboard. I typed on my TP2 with my nails and all of the sudden, I had to hit the keys with my fingers. That was not working. Now I use Swype and it correctly guesses what I am trying to type almost all of the time. It is a huge time saver and has significantly reduced my keyboard frustration.
I've used Swype and others. I got addicted to Swype, but I got a ton of errors all the time. I actually now prefer Swiftkey. It's a lot faster. My recent post Christian Humanitarianism -christianaudio -caReviewers
I like ShapeWriter better I think. If features from both were combined then it would be the perfect keyboard. ShapeWriter remembers your word you typed, so if you go back you can just select another word. Swype seems too have slightly better accuracy.
I tried it, but I wasn't sold on it. I didn't really get any improvement in accuracy or speed compared to my normal keyboard. And it doesn't do Japanese at all, so I'd have to get used to switching between two separate methods of input depending on the language I use at the time. I rather prefer flick-style input. It's more accurate for me than swype-type keyboards were, and I can use it for all the languages I need.
is there any way i can still get it now?
It`s cool but there is no support for my native language. So only when I`m typing in English it`s working properly. But that`s about 20% of my typing. My recent post 9 Android Apps for designers that I find very useful
I too prefer ShapeWriter. It was easier out of the box and smarter too.
Really, it is faster than any alternative out there, regardless of whether or not you prefer it initially. The only difference between this and regular typing is that there is no vertical element, which cuts down on typing time.
I have SlideIt, it's a similar sort of thing, but was available when Swype was just in Beta on the Android. It's excellent.
I too to Swype right away and use it almost exclusively. It isn't perfect but it's the fastest and easiest for me. It would be very nice to have the Microphone button on the Swype keyboard but for those that are looking for it, it's usually (though not always) available from the Menu key.
so far im loving swype, i was only missing the arrow keys, but once i found the hidden menu with them its all gravy now… the only gripe i have against swype is double letters, like if you try to spell something like "loop" its hard to do a circle around "O" to get the double o action going.
When the OTA Froyo update happened for my N1, Swype was briefly broken before a reinstall and I couldn't believe how lost I felt without it. In addition to the speedy word creation, having a visible key to press-and-hold punctuation is an incredible feature and has me no longer using the symbol page of the keyboard ever. Like others, I do wish for a microphone button, though.
Big fan. Broke my right clavicle 4 days ago and without Swype I would have become a near mute. Only keyboard entry I could do properly and with some speed using my left hand only. I also have SwiftKey installed and it is superfast when using both hands because of it's superior predictive powers.
anybody post a link to the latest version for the G1?