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Microsoft to Kill Off SwiftKey for iOS and Delist From App Store on October 5
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I’m actually kind of disappointed that they haven’t done more with that. I’m no Microsoft fan but I have a PC and it would be cool if more stuff was available.
I never said that, and if you read my replies, I explain how the situation with dark sky is completely different than what’s going on with this. I know with this thread it’s probably getting out of hand with so many replies. It becomes impossible to track who said what sometimes
First, how many of these complaints about the iOS keyboard are still relevant in iOS 16? Were there notable keyboard improvements in the latest OS release?
Second, anybody wanting SwiftKey should be talking to Microsoft. Let them know you want this feature to remain on iOS. Make noise. This may purely be a business decision, so you can help to tip the scales by speaking up.
Second, anybody wanting SwiftKey should be talking to Microsoft. Let them know you want this feature to remain on iOS. Make noise. This may purely be a business decision, so you can help to tip the scales by speaking up.
SwiftKey was amazing but Apple's support for third-party keyboards was terrible. This was one of the hardest things about coming to iOS from Android. And I'm pretty amazed that typing on iOS in 2022 is still pretty awful, like when the keyboard autocorrects a slight misspelling into two unrelated words.
Wouldn't you still be able to use it? It just won't be updated or available to download anymore is my understanding.
Yes right now, but you're on a timer. New device (repair or upgrade), perhaps an OS update with some API change and poof it's gone.
I'm already trying to transition to gboard. No point sinking more prediction info into a dead keyboard.
However if gboard goes away too I think I will completely give up on the iPhone. I cannot type almost at all on their default keyboard. I use mixed multi-language typing and it's just an exercise in frustration.
I hope Apple gets the message to improve its multilanguage capacities. And the tech industry in general. I am tired of Google translating the titles of videos on YouTube to my native French language when I understand English pretty well. Do people living in the Silicon Valley know that people around the world can speak more than one language?
At least we can continue to use Swiftkey at its current state, but I was hoping for updates and improvements.
At least we can continue to use Swiftkey at its current state, but I was hoping for updates and improvements.
In this case I think this falls under “Sherlocking” right? Aren’t most of these features now just built in to iOS?
MS has 76% of the OS market share compared to Apple's 14%, and whilst Apple's share yo-yo's, it hasn't made any significant headway in 5 years so I don't agree that MS sees that as a threat, especially as Windows only accounts for 12% of MS's revenue. MS's real money comes from the cloud/enterprise sector, and these days Apple barely has a seat at that table. However, in the area of office productivity software (23% of MS revenue), Office 365 only has 48% of market share, and has only just taken the lead over Google Workspace (G Suite), so that's where the more significant competition from Google comes from, not the OS market.
Partnering and competition aren't mutually exclusive either, Microsoft works closely with Apple to get Office working on Macs and iOS as it's advantageous to both companies.
Satya Nadella isn't lying awake at night worrying that people are buying iPhones.
What percentage of the social medium market did MySpace have in 2008? that sounds like ancient history, but that was 14 years ago. Microsoft doesn’t take anything for granted, especially potential competition. They haven’t been around this long by not shutting down anything that poses a risk to them. You should go read some history about Microsoft and you and you might find it entertaining.
Apple Silicon is a serious risk to Microsoft. They didn’t start running those stupid ads because they didn’t care about it.
Clearly, SwiftKey is just a small drop in the sea so almost irrelevant but it just shows how they operate. I can’t blame them because I would do the same thing.
Absolutely, I can keep using it for a while at least. But no chance that I will buy another iPhone as long as there is no viable alternative to SwiftKey which is being updated and therefore I can trust will work even after future OS updates.
It is quite frankly incredible that the keyboard situation on iPhone is SO much behind Android. On Android you have been able to have three languages active at the same time for many years, while SwiftKey on iPhone can only provide two due to Apples memory limitations.
One of the reason any iPhone is not my daily driver (even though I use it daily) is quite awful multi-language support and quite terrible keyboard (and I type A LOT).
I fell in love with SwiftKey on android ages ago (years before MS aquisition) and it was just amazing - being able to select 3 languages (native Polish, English as lingua franca and Spanish while learning and then getting new friends) was simply mind-blowing (at that time SK was the only keyboard that allowed that - the rest suffered from the same "switch language" nonsense). Over the years SK somewhat degraded in suggestions (especially under MS) but it was still million years ahead to other keyboards, especially on iPhone. To this day typing in multiple languages on iPhone is simply a chore.
I fell in love with SwiftKey on android ages ago (years before MS aquisition) and it was just amazing - being able to select 3 languages (native Polish, English as lingua franca and Spanish while learning and then getting new friends) was simply mind-blowing (at that time SK was the only keyboard that allowed that - the rest suffered from the same "switch language" nonsense). Over the years SK somewhat degraded in suggestions (especially under MS) but it was still million years ahead to other keyboards, especially on iPhone. To this day typing in multiple languages on iPhone is simply a chore.
Well, it’s not like Microsoft is doing anything to it anyway. It’s pretty much stagnate.
I used to use swiftkey on Android during its early days prior to Microsoft. It was good, much better than GBoard back then. But then later on its auto-correct was just completely out of whack, and almost made it useless. Microsoft buying it didn’t change anything. By that time, Google improved GBoard a lot that I finally switched.
I used to use swiftkey on Android during its early days prior to Microsoft. It was good, much better than GBoard back then. But then later on its auto-correct was just completely out of whack, and almost made it useless. Microsoft buying it didn’t change anything. By that time, Google improved GBoard a lot that I finally switched.
Download SwiftKey, store a copy of it somewhere safe, and then when you get a new iPhone in the future, download your saved copy and sideload/install it.
Third-party keyboards on iOS were always a hassle. They weren't allowed for passwords which was klunky but was tolerable. My biggest issue has always been they randomly shut off and you need to reselect them. Also, since iOS 16 I noticed they dont resize properly when going from landscape to portrait. The iOS keyboard is terrible at suggestions. Swiftkey learned your typing style quickly, making it a pleasure to use.
Microsoft is ending support for its SwiftKey predictive keyboard for iPhone and the app will be delisted from the App Store next week, the company confirmed on Wednesday.
Responding to a request from ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley for more information after a lack of updates to the app for over a year, director of product management at SwiftKey, Chris Wolfe, gave the following statement:
Microsoft did not give a reason for its decision to kill off the app, but Foley speculates that it may be related to Apple's policies about granting developers access to certain parts of its software, since if it chooses not to, "there's no easy or good way to make a product which needs integration to work."
Microsoft acquired SwiftKey in 2016. At the time, Microsoft said the keyboard was used on more than 300 million Android and iOS devices. The app uses a natural language processing algorithm that helps users type faster by predicting what they will type next. Microsoft plans to continue to support SwiftKey on Android for the foreseeable future.
Article Link: Microsoft to Kill Off SwiftKey for iOS and Delist From App Store on October 5
I have (well, had until yesterday) both GBoard and Swiftkey installed, but, yeah, this. The only thing I really use GBoard for is its wider variety of GIF selections than what comes with the iOS keyboard. Swiftkey hasn't been that useful for me since Apple got glide/swipe typing (which I rarely use anyway). So uninstalling it yesterday with this news didn't make me that sad.
I am not aware of alternatives. I was using SwiftKey on Android and kept it when I transitioned to the iPhone. I haven't used Gboard much, I personally don't need the search function integrated in my keyboard. Seems decent though, good completions. I find I have to type a little more carefully compared to SwiftKey otherwise I have more errors.
But on the default Apple keyboard I have to basically type-check-type every letter, it's terrible at guessing what I'm doing and my fingers are large.
What shows how they operate? Your own speculation? That seems a circular argument unless I'm missing something. I don't understand why you're dismissing the reasons they've given (which would all seem to stand up to scrutiny) out-of-hand in lieu of seemingly self-confirming reasoning which seems to ignore the facts that MS are continuing support for Android (another competitor) and have already been supporting SwiftKey on iOS for 6 years since they purchased the company. Then look at the amount of iOS apps MS is continuing to support on the App Store that don't directly support revenue streams. Why don't your arguments apply to them? Sorry, but this is a case of Occam's razor. I don't see anything to even make me think this has been withdrawn for reasons of commercial competition.
This is not entirely true, or at least not true for all languages, as the functionality you're talking about is only available for English, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), French, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and Hindi. Anyone that wants to use a combination of languages where any are not on this very small list of languages will have to switch layouts constantly.
You should edit your comment.
I loved SwiftKey but switched to GBoard and never looked back: three languages at a time without issue, can use space key for moving cursor more easily than in the default iOS keyboard, great prediction improving over time. The privacy worry is alleviated for me by the fact that you can turn off the sharing data option, and it still performs perfectly (it will make google searches unusable, but for me, it is a bonus).