Michal Ždanský Third-party keyboards have long been an exclusive advantage of the Android operating system due to its openness, so it was a bigger and more pleasant surprise when Apple announced support for third-party keyboards in iOS 8. Keyboard developers didn't hesitate to announce the ongoing development of their typing solutions, with the vast majority of popular keyboards arriving with the release of iOS 8.
All the usual suspects—SwiftKey, Swype, and Fleksy—were available for users to change their typing habits built up over years on Apple's built-in keyboard. Unfortunately, not everyone could start trying the new way of typing right away, because the keyboards only supported a small number of languages, of which, as expected, Czech was not.
This was true at least for the two most attractive keyboards available – SwiftKey and Swype. A fortnight ago, the Swype update was released with the addition of 21 new languages, among which we finally got the Czech language. As part of the experiment, I decided to use the Swype keyboard exclusively for two weeks, and here are the findings from intensive use over the last 14 days, when Czech was available.
I liked the Swype design more than SwiftKey from the start, but this is a subjective matter. Swype offers several color themes, which also change the layout of the keyboard, but out of habit I stayed with the default bright keyboard, which reminds me of Apple's keyboard. At first glance, there are several differences.
First and foremost, I would mention the Shift keyboard, which Apple should copy into their keyboard without batting an eye, bow their head and pretend that Shift never existed in iOS 7 and 8 in the form we still struggle with today. An orange glowing key makes it clear that Shift is active, when pressed twice the arrow changes to the CAPS LOCK symbol. Not only that, depending on the status of Shift, the appearance of individual keys also changes, i.e. if it is turned off, the letters on the keys are small, not in the form of capitals. Why Apple never thought of this is still a mystery to me.
Another change is the presence of period and dash keys on both sides of the spacebar, which is slightly smaller than on the default keyboard, but you won't notice the difference when typing, especially since you won't even use the spacebar very often. What is noticeably missing, however, are accent keys. Typing single letters with brackets and dashes is just as painful as it was on the first iPhone. All accents for a given letter must be inserted by holding the key and dragging to select. You'll be cursing Swype any time you have to type a word this way. Fortunately, this won't happen that often, especially as time goes on and the vocabulary in your personal dictionary grows.
If you're not familiar with swipe typing, it works simply by swiping your finger across letters instead of tapping them out, where one swipe represents one word. Based on the path of your finger, the app calculates which letters you probably wanted to type, compares them with its own dictionary and offers the most likely word based on a complex algorithm, taking syntax into account. Of course, it doesn't always hit, that's why Swype offers you three alternatives in the bar above the keyboard, and by dragging to the sides, you can see even more options.
Drag typing takes some getting used to and may take you a few hours to get up to speed. Dragging has a large tolerance, but with more accuracy, the chance of getting the word right increases. The biggest problem is especially with short words, because such a move offers multiple interpretations. For example, Swype will write me the word "zip" instead of the word "to", both of which can be written with a quick horizontal stroke, a small inaccuracy can then make the difference as to which word Swype chooses. At least he usually offers the right thing in the bar.
The keyboard also has several interesting features. The first of them is the automatic insertion of spaces between individual words. This also applies if you tap one key, for example to write a conjunction, and then write the next word with a stroke. However, a space will not be inserted if you have gone back to the word to correct the ending, for example, and then typed another with a stroke. Instead, you will have two compound words without a space. Not sure if this is intentional or a bug.
Another trick is writing diacritical marks, where you write an exclamation point from "X" to the space bar and a question mark from "M" to the space bar. You can write individual letters in the same way, for the conjunction "a" you simply direct the stroke from the A key to the space bar again. You can also insert a period by pressing the space bar twice.
Swyp's vocabulary is very good, especially in the first lessons I was surprised how little I had to add new words to the dictionary. With quick strokes, I can write even long sentences, including diacritics, with one hand faster than if I were to write the same thing with both hands. But this only applies until you come across a word that Swype doesn't recognize.
First of all, it will suggest nonsense that you need to delete (thankfully, you only need to press Backspace once), then you will probably try to type the word again to make sure that the nonsense was not caused by your inaccuracy. Only then do you decide, after deleting the word for the second time, to type the expression classically. After pressing the spacebar, Swype will prompt you to add a word to the dictionary (this process can be automated). At that point, you'll just start cursing the absence of accent buttons, because typing long words with lots of hyphens and dashes is often the reason you'd rather delete Swype from your phone. Patience is key at this stage.
I mentioned the comprehensive Czech dictionary of the keyboard, but sometimes you pause over words that the application does not know. "Punctuation", "please", "read", "carrot" or "I won't" is just a small sample of what Swype does not know. After two weeks, my personal dictionary reads roughly over 100 words, many of which I would expect Swyp to know. I expect it will take a few more weeks before my vocabulary is such that I don't have to memorize new words in casual conversation.
Embedding emoticons is also a bit problematic, because switching the keyboard requires holding down the Swype key and dragging to select the globe icon, then you only get to the Emoji keyboard. There is only a simple smiley in the Swyp menu. On the other hand, entering numbers was handled well by Swype. So it has a number line in an alternative menu of characters like Apple's keyboard, but it also offers a special layout where the numbers are larger and laid out like on a numeric keypad. Especially for entering phone numbers or account numbers, this feature is slightly genius.
Despite the above-mentioned difficulties, mainly related to the lack of vocabulary, Swype is a very solid keyboard with which, with a little practice, your typing speed can be significantly increased. In particular, writing with one hand is significantly more comfortable and faster than with classic typing. If I had the option, I always tried to write messages (iMessage) from an iPad or a Mac, for the comfort of writing. Thanks to Swype, I have no problem writing quickly even from the phone without having to sacrifice diacritics.
Although I considered the fortnight I used Swype to be a trial, I'll probably stick with the keyboard, that is, assuming the upcoming SwiftKey update doesn't offer a better experience once Czech language support arrives. Once you get used to stroke typing and take the time to learn the new technique, there's no going back. Using Swype is still a challenge, there are problems, imperfections and difficulties, especially in the Czech mutation, which one has to endure (for example, the end of writing non-literal endings), but one has to persevere and not be discouraged by initial setbacks. You will be rewarded with very fast typing with one hand.
The English version of the keyboard does not suffer from the childhood diseases of the Czech version, at least in most cases, moreover, the language can be easily switched by holding the space bar. I often have to communicate in English and I really appreciate the quick switching. I just wish that swiping in Czech was as effective and refined as in English, especially in terms of vocabulary and keyboard layout.
Finally, I'd like to address the concerns of some about sending information to developers. Swype requires full access to download Czech. Full access means that the keyboard gets access to the Internet to download or upload data. But the reason for full access is more prosaic. Developers simply do not include all dictionaries for supported languages directly in the application, because Swype would easily take several hundred megabytes. Therefore, she needs full access to download additional dictionaries. After downloading the Czech language, full access can also be turned off, which has no effect on the functioning of the keyboard.
I would add the observation that the Swype keyboard does not appear for me when using Spotlight search. I need to switch to somewhere that can be typed and switch to a standard keyboard.
iP6+ and iOS 8.1
I can't use Swiftkey to write tweets in the Tweetbot app, it looks like it's writing, but in reality it doesn't write anything.
Well, I also tested it 14 days after the release of the road and I have the same problems. In addition to the diacritics, I am also annoyed by the fact that the switch to another keyboard will fail when I want to use Apple's dictation. And then the longer loading of the keyboard also turns me on.
After about two weeks of using Swype, I switched to SwiftKey and my experience is better. I find the dictionary richer, better access to switching, and I also quickly got used to the bland color scheme. SwiftKey is the best for me so far.
I tried and deleted Swype after 3 days. I am mainly not satisfied with the fact that the keys are significantly smaller than in the default keyboard, which has become significantly larger on the iPhone 6. In the same way, despite trying to learn it, I don't like "fumbling" on the screen and other gadgets. The default keyboard gives fairly decent hints and when I can, I use dictation more and more. And I really don't need a similar keyboard to write a few words to someone. But I believe that it may suit someone else. Not me personally.
I would also like to mention the not entirely ideal shape of the keyboard in landscape orientation, especially on the iPhone 6 Plus, the "sniffing" mode is unusable. (I was also forced to use American quotation marks because, in my experience, it is impossible to insert the correct German ones using Swyp.)
I tried to compare with SwiftKey and after several tries it never once typed the word I wanted :-)
For me, Swype clearly leads in terms of the intended word recognition algorithm. Deleting a word is also easier - just backspace once, whereas with SwiftKey you need to delete a word letter by letter.
Sometimes the Messages app freezes after an incoming message and if I have Swype active. After that, the application must be closed manually and opened again. Hopefully it will be fine-tuned in time, because it makes me angry enough. I have an iPhone 5.
I tried Swype first, because it had Czech support before Swiftkey... I like that the keyboard is very similar to the original one from Apple, but the emoticons annoy me the most... they are written very clumsily. After a few days I finally switched to Swiftkey and I am more satisfied. It is a bit bigger, but you get used to it. I find the language stock richer and the characters are more comfortable to write. See you in the future :-)
the weakest is the dictionary on swype – if I write a slightly more comprehensive text, I have to enter every second word. By far the best dictionary has minuum
I still think the accusations of whispering are completely off the mark. Judging from my experience with the default keyboard of last year's iOS, I found the keyboard on the iPhone to be clearly the worst across all platforms. (if something has changed in ios 8, I'm sorry)
How am I supposed to understand that when recording the keyboard, he wants to allow everything I type (phone numbers, credit cards, etc.) to be displayed to developers or third parties (now I don't know how it is exactly there....
thanks for the info :)
It's a shame that the article lacks a link to the app in the Appstore
I would try the keyboard right away :)
The keyboard suits me so far, the only thing that bothers me is that the layout is QWERTZ and I haven't figured out how to switch to QWERTY, which I've been used to all my life. Does anyone have any advice?