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SwiftKey Keyboard for iOS Gains New Theme Store

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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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SwiftKey is one of the more popular third-party keyboard choices on iOS, due to its autocorrect and word prediction capabilities that are able to adapt to an individual's usage style over time. Since its debut last September, SwiftKey has been updated several times with features like predictive emoji and typing stats, and as of today, it's getting another major update that will allow for deeper customization: a theme store.

The new SwiftKey theme store allows users to purchase new themes to personalize the look of their keyboards with unique color schemes. There are 12 new themes available for purchase, available in a range of different colors and styles.

swiftkeythemes.jpg
Organized into categories, there are five new Nickel themes, six Minimal themes, and one animated theme -- Shooting Stars. Colors range from black and white to pink, blue, and orange. In combination with the three free existing themes SwiftKey offers, there are now a total of 15 themes available. Themes range from $0.99 for basic themes to $1.99 for the animated Shooting Stars theme.
Shooting Stars, which features a beautiful night sky, changes as you move your phone, giving the theme a more realistic and dimensional look and feel by making use of parallax. Parallax is just a fancy word for when an object, or objects, seem to be in a different positions depending on where you're viewing them from.

For $1.99, you can give your keyboard a twinkling background with stars that are dynamically generated each time the keyboard loads. If you look closely you may even see some shooting stars fly across the keyboard...
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Today's update also includes performance and stability improvements, along with a fix that cuts down on instances when SwiftKey is unintentionally replaced by the default iOS keyboard. SwiftKey recommends that existing users should restart their iPhones or iPads after installing the update to see the performance improvements.

SwiftKey can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Update: SwiftKey tells MacRumors it is having some issues with store purchase validation on iOS at the moment, but the team is working on the problem. Users will receive any themes they've purchased once the issue has been resolved.

Update 11:45 AM: A new 1.3.2 version of SwiftKey has been released, fixing the issue with purchase validation. Users having issues with purchased themes should update to the latest version and reselect the purchased theme in the store. They will not need to go through the purchase process again.

Article Link: SwiftKey Keyboard for iOS Gains New Theme Store
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2015/05/20/swiftkey-keyboard-theme-store/
nice, its already my favorite keyboard and so much more convenient than the default one

edit: those keyboards dont work? i picked the star one but it shows me the default black keyboard instead
 
Last edited:
MartinAppleGuy said:
To make the experience of SwiftKey collecting all your typing data more customisable :rolleyes:
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LOL. Good point. It's not bad enough we pay a lot of money for the phone itself, then for our plans, then we get nickel and dimed to death the rest of the way. I got so fed up with this racket I'm using my iPhone as an iPod Touch and back to a "dumb" phone just for phone calls when I'm not on Wifi.
 
I think the only custom keyboard I've even tried was the Armenian one. And everyone was telling me I was missing out before iOS 8.
 
SwiftKey has pushed out another update fixing the purchase validation issue, so if you update to the new version 1.3.2 and reselect the theme you purchased in the store, you should be good to go.
 
Lots of hate for SwiftKey and they do deserve some. Their app along with the volatile and terrible iOS acceptance of 3rd party keyboards have made making any keyboard other than the default iOS keyboard nearly impossible. I have tried myself and love SwiftKey, but the bugs have just sabotaged the experience.

However, this update (albeit 2 hours worth of use) has made the app seem much more fluid and stable. If they can get the dang app to just open up every time I click on messages, safari, etc. Then they will have won me over entirely. There isn't much to hate about SwiftKey besides the bugs and lack of voice dictation (which I use sporadically at best).

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WildCowboy said:
SwiftKey has pushed out another update fixing the purchase validation issue, so if you update to the new version 1.3.2 and reselect the theme you purchased in the store, you should be good to go.
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Yep, no problems here with me. And I can confirm too that I am running 1.3.2:cool:
 
Until there is a dictation icon in these third-party keyboards I consider them neutered by Apple and I will never use one of them
 
These are the people who collect your keystrokes aren't they? I don't want to use their software.
 
Three reasons I came back to iPhone were 1) Fingerprint security/ApplePay, bigger screen and swipe type keyboards.

Is the swipe type as good as Androids? No, but it works pretty darn good. Better than me fat fingering it.
 
Are third party keyboards any good yet? I was really excited about them when iOS 8 was announced but now I don't use any of them because they are so buggy. Hopefully that and a lot of other stuff is patched up in iOS 9. I'd really like to use some other keyboards!
 
C DM said:
Do they actually do that though?
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Data mining for user information is something pretty much all companies do now, why wouldn't they? I'm sure every text you send and receive goes through their servers and the probably have a program that analyzes that text for keywords to collect info about their users.

If they took the time to put it in the disclaimer and terms of use that you had to agree to, then chances are they did so because they had every intention of spying on you.
 
ohsnaphappy said:
Until there is a dictation icon in these third-party keyboards I consider them neutered by Apple and I will never use one of them
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I was in the middle of downloading Swiftkey until i saw your comment, then i stopped the download and deleted the keyboard. No dictation makes it completely pointless, I agree.
 
LordBeelzebub said:
Data mining for user information is something pretty much all companies do now, why wouldn't they? I'm sure every text you send and receive goes through their servers and the probably have a program that analyzes that text for keywords to collect info about their users.

If they took the time to put it in the disclaimer and terms of use that you had to agree to, then chances are they did so because they had every intention of spying on you.
Click to expand...
So is that actually in their disclaimer? Is that actually what's happening? I mean generalizations are great and all, but that doesn't mean they apply all the time and the same way in all of the cases (that's why they are generalizations). (Something to keep in mind is that there's also the option of the level of access the keyboard has to the system and the network.)
 
Dagless said:
These are the people who collect your keystrokes aren't they? I don't want to use their software.
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Hi Dagless, I can confirm that SwiftKey does not log keystrokes. We take security very seriously and go into more detail in our security statement below. It details the data we do collect. As a company we care deeply about our users and always want to provide the highest quality experience.

http://swiftkey.com/en/data-security/

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Dagless said:
These are the people who collect your keystrokes aren't they? I don't want to use their software.
Click to expand...

C DM said:
Do they actually do that though?
Click to expand...

I can confirm SwiftKey does not collect keystrokes as I work at SwiftKey. More info in the data security statement below about how we treat data.

http://swiftkey.com/en/data-security/
 
joshswiftkey said:
Hi Dagless, I can confirm that SwiftKey does not log keystrokes. We take security very seriously and go into more detail in our security statement below. It details the data we do collect. As a company we care deeply about our users and always want to provide the highest quality experience.

http://swiftkey.com/en/data-security/

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I can confirm SwiftKey does not collect keystrokes as I work at SwiftKey. More info in the data security statement below about how we treat data.

http://swiftkey.com/en/data-security/
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are you guys planning to add the swipe to delete feature? It's available on android, but not iOS. I have already sent a feature request. Also, the new emojis aren't usable with the swiftkey emoji keyboard.
 
AppleGuesser said:
If they can get the dang app to just open up every time I click on messages, safari, etc. Then they will have won me over entirely.
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This is exactly why I don't use it. 10% of the time it doesn't come up and I have to force close the app I'm using. Too damn annoying to even bother using it.

Why would I spend money on their themes when they can't even get the app I bought to work properly? Fool me once.......
 
AlphaTeam said:
This is exactly why I don't use it. 10% of the time it doesn't come up and I have to force close the app I'm using. Too damn annoying to even bother using it.

Why would I spend money on their themes when they can't even get the app I bought to work properly? Fool me once.......
Click to expand...
That could be more of an iOS/Apple issue than it is SwiftKey/third-party keyboard creator type of issue.
 
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