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A Look at Microsoft's Upcoming Word Flow Keyboard, Now in Closed Beta Testing
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Yes. Absolutely. I don't allow full access if I can use all the features of a 3rd party keyboard. Most require full access for at least one feature.
Swype works perfectly fine without full access, but the word prediction won't work on SwiftKey without it.
Keyboard clicks won't work without full access full stop.
Looks good! I really hate the regular keyboard on my iPad, so I am looking forward to trying this out!
Apologies if I didn't understand correctly, but are you talking about this button? It still allows selections amongst keyboards.
Swiftkey and Swype work without sending their data to a server, so that doesn't sound like a good excuse.
Neither does comparing speech analysis to typing analysis.
I think Apple have final realised that MS Office is too great a competition.
Hahahaha!They need to compare it to your other data, extract names and phone numbers from your contacts, check your location with FBI, see if you're no typing something illegal, send a squad at your location if you are typing something illegal, patent all your bright ideas, store passwords just in case and simply have fun selling info to third parties.
Hey, Google, this user is 24 yo, from NY and it looks like he's going to visit his friend in Chicago this week. Sell him some ads on travelling and airplane tickets.
Psst, Facebook. Do you want to know what we learned about this guy?
---...--. --.--...-..-. ALPHA, THIS IS DELTA. INCOMING TRANSMISSION ABOUT EINSTEINBQAT. YES, EINSTEINBQAT. HE SEEMS TO KNOW TOO MUCH. YES, WAY TOO MUCH.
And Microsoft's keyboard's better than either of those, so it's okay.
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Are you sure about that?
Here's an excerpt from SwiftKey's Privacy Policy:
SwiftKey.com said:
Now, talking about Swype. Swype goes a step further by outsourcing their data to a third party, namely Nuance Communications, Inc. Here's what the Swype website has to say about their company's Privacy Policy:
I visited Nuance's Privacy Policy page mentioned in the link. Smartly enough, they have an all-inclusive generic privacy policy. "Sending data to a server" is very much one of their policies. I have included the link should you be interested, although I'd advice against it. The entire text is quite wearisome and useless.Swype.com said:
While I can further argue how Big Data and its analysis is oblivious to speech or typing or text or image or walking or eating habits, I rather compared typing analysis to typing analysis for you.
Yes, Pages would obviously be developed faster if Apple added some fashion designers to work on it.
Oh wait - that makes no sense.
I don't know what it all includes, but for what it's worth it doesn't include password data since the Apple keyboard is forced for typing in those fields.
As sure as I can be by checking their policies. As you yourself have found, SwiftKey says that they ONLY get what you type in the case of "users that opt in to SwiftKey Cloud". I didn't, and my SwiftKey keyboard works.
As for Swype, no matter what they outsource, as you yourself have found, they do "power connected features" with network connections. Those are once more opt in. As you can see in their helpful FAQ,
Do I need to enable “Full Access” for Swype?
No. You only need to enable “Full Access” if you would like to download more languages, or to use purchased Swype themes. You can disable “Full Access” once you have completed your language download, or you have accessed Swype Keyboard after purchasing premium themes.
So: yep, it seems pretty clear that neither Swype nor SwiftKey do need network connections at all.No. You only need to enable “Full Access” if you would like to download more languages, or to use purchased Swype themes. You can disable “Full Access” once you have completed your language download, or you have accessed Swype Keyboard after purchasing premium themes.
Furthermore, it's kinda funny how a couple of years ago people were mad at Apple for sending voice to servers for voice recognition, and now others are perfectly OK with sending typed text to servers for whatever "analysis". Makes me wonder, how did desktop computers manage to do anything at all by themselves 20 years ago? And palmtops 10 years ago?
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No, as just discussed, looks like neither Swype nor SwiftKey need any network connection for their learning.
So one has to wonder what kind of amazing features or amazing spying is Microsoft doing.
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It better be! I probably won't be trying it, though. Good luck!
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It is amusing to read that you first stick your neck out to assert that they absolutely do not collect our information in your first post, but then when pointed out - and rightly so - that they do need to collect our information in order to process it for all the services to function, your second post seems "Well you know, they may be collecting information but hey you can always opt out." It's like saying we can opt out of Siri collecting data and limiting the features - features in context being Siri not replying to our questions.
Secondly, palmtops 10 years ago and computers 20 years ago or even dial-up Internet around the same time cannot possibly be compared to the devices we use now. The comparison is almost impractical. Correct me if I am wrong, but surely their connection to the outside world itself was very much rudimentary. They were almost like islands. Our palmtops never could turn down the temperatures at our home when we left from work, or print a document and have it ready by the time we reach our offices. Nor were the desktops around the circa you mentioned used by people to do their banking transactions at home. Ironically, people from that era would have found the concept of depositing a cheque by just taking a picture of it at their homes, to be funny.
Data collection is real. Right from the threshold of your computer/phone to the outside world. Right from your ISP to the various services we use online everyday, to the targeted ad services, to the servers which store this data, to the companies that own these servers - all have their one ear eavesdropping at what we are up to. So now it's only about who you trust more with your data.
Having said that, it is one's choice to limit their exposure. In fact I myself always recommend friends and people around me to limit their exposure as much as they plausibly can. That is why I love the Blackphone's concept. So yes, all said and done, your concern is valid. Albeit, we can hardly do much about it.
Where to start...
First of all: no one has "pointed out that they need to collect our information". Because they DO NOT NEED TO, according to their terms. Check again the quotes that you yourself posted. C'mon, it's all there!
Second, you seem to not understand the difference between "opt in" and "opt out". Or maybe you don't know those keyboards and are confused about their functionality? No worries, I'll explain.
SwiftKey, according to the terms that you posted (third paragraph), only receives "language data" for users that opt-in. So, users do have to ask for it. If they don't, then SwiftKey won't receive language data. Easy! Anyway, note that SwiftKey "might" still receive other data, like "anonymous device, network, performance and usage statistics." But, did you realize? Nothing about what you actually TYPE.
Got that? Good, because for Swype is the same. You got lost in some tangent about their outsourcing, but that is nonsense, because once more it is opt in. If you don't ask for it, they don't get what you TYPE.
Now, you seem to understand that me stating this is "sticking out my neck" for them. And yet it is me who is very explicitly referring to their terms and FAQs, without reinterpreting anything; they might be lying (like others have before), and then it was just a lie. Not our fault, they cheated us, end of the story.
But it's you who are wanting to reinterpret their terms and put the good players into the same bag of heavily suspicious players. It's you who is sticking your neck out for Microsoft, even though they don't even try: they just want your data! You are making a disservice to the good players and to the people who care.
You don't care? Good for you, do whatever you want. But don't trample on the difference, which is very real.
Hell no, the Siri example is not even the opposite - it's worse. It doesn't even make sense to "opt out", because your data has to be sent out. The only way to "opt out" is to not use it at all.
Which sums up nicely the reason why I am not comfortable about a keyboard which sends the data I type to a server. Why should I, given that I have 2 other keyboards which work perfectly locally?
What does "rudimentary" mean to you? Palmtops had bluetooth, wifi and cellular connections more than a decade ago.
Home automation with Palm Pilots in 2002:
https://web.archive.org/web/20020221071639/http://www.webconx.com/palm/x10.htm
Printing a document from a Palm a decade ago:
http://www.bachmannsoftware.com/pbprem.htm
I was using internet banking a decade ago from my desktop, and I am pretty sure I was not the first one. Not sure what your cheque photo example has to do with anything; the tech was in place long ago, but having banks realize that they can ease things for users is something more difficult than getting the tech.
But anyway it feels like you didn't get the point. Here we are, having phones with higher capabilities than desktops had 10 years ago, and yet somehow sending typed text to a server for analysis sounds like a good idea. Mind you, we're not talking about OCRing, speech recognition or simultaneous translation: now, simple typing on our 64-bit, multi-core phones needs server-side analysis! WTF?
But OF COURSE it is real! And that is why I don't want to just send away everything I type. Even less to Microsoft, the company who tripled access to the NSA when they bought Skype. The company who has made the rounds in the news lately because of their non-privacy policies in Windows 10. Yeah, for sure they only want to help me when they analyse all-of-my-typing.
OF COURSE we can. You can start by not blindly accepting what they tell you.
Myself, I already said my easy solution: I will stay with my local keyboards, thank you very much.
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Thankfully, from "they share no data at all" you have finally agreed they "may" share device, network, performance and usage statistics. Although it surprises me that you are somehow okay with sharing that data, as long as it is not what you "type" - disregarding the fact that Apple doesn't allow third-party keyboards on sensitive pages or secure-text fields, anyway.
Ignoring the personal attacks questioning my interpretation capability, you must understand that the intelligent features need server side processing. Let me quote you:
And, without the intelligent features enabled, why use a third-party keyboard anyway? Especially when iOS has failed to remove a lot of glitches from third-party keyboards.
I am also thankful for your lessons in English, however patronizing they may be.
You somehow seem to have the notion that I speak for Microsoft. You also somehow seem to dislike Microsoft. And all this while you have dismissed the fact that the keyboard in question is in beta version. How much data a user has to spare unwillingly can only be known - and the app can only be judged - once it is released to stable version, for I trust Apple more in not letting suspicious apps infiltrate the App Store for long.
Your much dislike for Microsoft is unfortunately reflecting on your interaction with me.
1.- I dare you to show when/where did I say that they "share no data at all".
2.- What has to be agreed? What they share and what they don't is right there, explicitly, in the terms, FFS. Why are we still talking about this?
So, to you, it's all OK if no passwords are sent. Well, in there we certainly disagree.
We certainly have gone a looong way from the time where "we" cared that Google was scanning our mailboxes. Now, some people don't bat an eyelid to the thought of everything they type being sent to a third party. As you can see, I do.
You don't. Good, you have a new keyboard to try! And it's free, too! <snicker>
What part of "Swype and SwiftKey do work perfectly without sending over what you type" is so hard to understand?
And Swype does work fully without activating Full Access. You don't even have to trust their legalese!
I don't dislike them; I despise them. However, that's in fact just the cherry on top of this particular pie. I wouldn't be using Swype or SwiftKey either if they were sending over everything I type.
It's about privacy first, and about whom to trust only second.
Yeah, so since it's not clear what they do, you complain about my assumptions, but you do assume that (a) it'll be good, (b) everyone is doing it. Well, so I'm not sharing (a), and I'm telling you that (b) is simply false.
Also, Apple gives you the opt-in possibility: you have to grant full access to the keyboard for it to do anything bad. But now you expect them to save you from your own opt-in? It's like saying "if I could say something dangerous in iMessage, Apple would have not published it". You are practically asking for a full-time nanny.
Yeah, my bad. Maybe I should have prepared an avatar or signature disclaiming that I don't own any Microsoft plush toys or something?
Let's do something: you find me another, non-Microsoft keyboard which sends over everything I type, and I explain to you why that keyboard is ALSO not a good idea. ;P