For the longest time, one of the advantages of Android over iOS was the ability to use third-party keyboard apps available on the Play Store. These keyboards each provide their own unique features to make text entry a better experience. One of the pioneers in swipe-gestures in mobile keyboard apps, Swype, has been a mainstay on many users' devices. The app is so popular that it is even pre-installed on smartphones from Huawei. However, it looks like those days may be over in the future as Nuance has confirmed that they are discontinuing Swype for Android and iOS.
In a post made on Reddit earlier today, a user claims that they reached out to Nuance support with an issue and 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.
Curious, we went looking online and discovered a Zendesk article from Nuance that announced the iOS version of the app would be discontinued as well. In order to confirm this, we also reached out to Nuance PR and they confirmed that development of Swype+Dragon for Android has indeed been discontinued.
This isn't too surprising as it is clear that Nuance has been pushing hard on its direct-to-business front. Anyone in the medical field has likely heard of how Dragon Dictation technology is used by medical providers to dictate their charts. The company has also recently started working on getting its dictation software in vehicles.
For users of Swype, this will be sad news as it means the app will no longer receive any new features. This is disappointing because it's possible that future versions of Android may introduce new APIs that could be useful for keyboard apps. For instance, Android Oreo introduced the IME_FLAG_NO_PERSONALIZED_LEARNING API that allows apps to open a keyboard app in incognito mode so the keyboard app won't record any input. However, the keyboard app actually needs to implement an incognito mode in order for this to work.
If you're looking for a new keyboard, I personally recommend Google's very own Gboard. While admittedly it has gotten more bloated over time, the app still receives a lot of new feature updates and is unlikely to be abandoned any time soon. If you would still like to continue using Swype, then you won't need to do anything as the app is still available on the Play Store. Furthermore, Xposed Framework modules may help keep the app alive for a little bit longer, but I wouldn't rely on that.
Swype Keyboard ($0.99+, Google Play) →
Gboard - the Google Keyboard (Free, Google Play) →
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