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SwiftKey faster than Apple keyboard?

kockgunner

kockgunner

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Sep 24, 2007
1,565
22
Vancouver, Canada
Does anyone feel SwiftKey is more responsive than Apple's keyboard? Save for the slight delay when loading the keyboard, the key caps appear instantly the moment you press. With Apple's keyboard there is still a split second delay which makes it feel unresponsive.

I wonder if the delay is intentional so your eyes have more time to register feedback. I feel SwiftKey's key caps appears on screen very quickly but disappears a bit too soon.
 
I think its Apples keyboard has a delay.

It's hard to say from normal usage but that's what it looks like to me.

From using the keyboards for the past couple weeks it seems like Apples keyboard is more consistent in general. Swiftkey has great prediction. Fleksy, and Minuum are incredibly fast but struggle wkth more complex correction.

Generally I still use iOS keyboard with QuickType as it seems to do a much better job of doing prediction and more complex corrections in a balanced way.

Glad there's at least more options how for people to try.
 
no delay with apples keyboard on my device, ill only pay more attention to other keyboards when/if they work everywhere across ios
 
Yun0 said:
no delay with apples keyboard on my device, ill only pay more attention to other keyboards when/if they work everywhere across ios
Click to expand...

I wouldn't plan around that.

Software keyboards are glorified key loggers that use network connectivity to try to get smarter over time. Apple intentionally restricts things to their keyboard for all secure input fields.
 
vigilant said:
I wouldn't plan around that.

Software keyboards are glorified key loggers that use network connectivity to try to get smarter over time. Apple intentionally restricts things to their keyboard for all secure input fields.
Click to expand...

thats on my mind too..luckily i find apples keyboard beautiful since ios 7, so im not dying to have another
 
Yun0 said:
thats on my mind too..luckily i find apples keyboard beautiful since ios 7, so im not dying to have another
Click to expand...


Apples keyboards run locally. If you do use third party keyboards though, stick with established companies.

Swiftkey, Fleksy and Swype are pretty established. Minuum is probably safe enough.

I'd avoid anything that says color a keyboard or anything like that.
 
vigilant said:
Glad there's at least more options how for people to try.
Click to expand...

A lot more keyboards if you see the megathread of 3rd party keyboards.

vigilant said:
Apples keyboards run locally. If you do use third party keyboards though, stick with established companies.

Swiftkey, Fleksy and Swype are pretty established. Minuum is probably safe enough.
Click to expand...

Not all keyboards need full access in order to use the 3rd party keyboard (like e.g. Swype, Path Input) i think Apple does check if they really don't access it if you also reject it when asked.
 
I find Apple's keyboard slow on the iPhone 6, sometimes it misses characters when I am typing.

I'll try Swift Key and report back.
 
Yun0 said:
thats on my mind too..luckily i find apples keyboard beautiful since ios 7, so im not dying to have another
Click to expand...

Define "beautiful"... Because this thing is a bloated mess :(
263de11.jpg


- Globe key shifts position in landscape and portrait
- Autofill Password line... On a message board post?
- No iPad style split keyboard?
- Keyboard layout unusable shrunk in favor of obscure buttons
- Shift + Arrows don't actually highlight
- Dedicated "Bold" Key?!?
- An icing bottle?!?!?

I primarily use the standard keyboard but this is far from being practical or "beautiful" in any way.
 
Last edited:
My only problem with third party keyboard is that i use assitive touch and it gets in the way since assistive touch does not recognize it and doesn't auto-move unlike when I use the stock keyboard
 
Do the secondary keyboards sometimes not come up for anyone? Sometimes I end up having to re-start whatever app I am using in order for the keyboard to pop up.
 
urkel said:
Define "beautiful"... Because this thing is a bloated mess :(
Image

- Globe key shifts position in landscape and portrait
- Autofill Password line... On a message board post?
- No iPad style split keyboard?
- Keyboard layout unusable shrunk in favor of obscure buttons
- Shift + Arrows don't actually highlight
- Dedicated "Bold" Key?!?
- An icing bottle?!?!?

I primarily use the standard keyboard but this is far from being practical or "beautiful" in any way.
Click to expand...

I get the autofill password thing when posting here as well on my retina mini. Used to be all the time but it randomly decided to stop.

And I feel horrible for plus users and that mess of a keyboard. Luckily it's only that way in landscape >_> during the keynote when they talked about that landscape keyboard on the plus very briefly, I was horrified and glad I am not interested in the 6+. When you take the top and bottom bezels, that keyboard seems like it is very hard to reach with all those other things being in the way, having to reach ACROSS them and all.
 
urkel said:
Define "beautiful"... Because this thing is a bloated mess :(
Image

- Globe key shifts position in landscape and portrait
- Autofill Password line... On a message board post?
- No iPad style split keyboard?
- Keyboard layout unusable shrunk in favor of obscure buttons
- Shift + Arrows don't actually highlight
- Dedicated "Bold" Key?!?
- An icing bottle?!?!?

I primarily use the standard keyboard but this is far from being practical or "beautiful" in any way.
Click to expand...

what mess? thats a basic clean nice looking keyboard..just disable predictive, on any keyboard
 
fardeenah said:
swiftkey is faster to type on but slower to load
Click to expand...

I've been using swiftkey for the day, and i love it so far. I haven't really notice it loading slower, but who knows. But there is one feature of swiftkey that i love to death, and for it alone i won't change back... i can have english and spanish combined. So i can type messages in either english or spanish, or use both together in the same message, and no need to change keyboards. Before, if i had english keyboard and started typing a message in spanish, auto-correct kept changing my words to english words, and vice versa... pain in the but. So awesome.
 
I much prefer SwiftKey.
Very snappy, very smart in its predictions.
My spelling can be way off and it catches my intent.
Predicts next word so well.
Quite amazing. Apple native board is slow witted by comparison.
Only odd thing is that sometimes a word will be predicted in the center box (of the three) and a press of space bar will not insert it - it usually does.
Have to tap the word itself.

Other manageable but unfortunate flaw is no microphone key like you get with native board. (an Apple proprietary thing I'd imagine)
Considering how incredibly improved and accurate the speech to text functionality is in iOS8 (truly amazing), it's a shame one has to switch keyboards to access it.
Use SwiftKey for a few days, combine your letter taps with word taps (have to keep an eye on the predicted words as you type),and you'll be hooked.
But, having said all that, I'm going to try to use the speech function more and more. It's a miracle of the new OS.
 
tongefactor40 said:
Do the secondary keyboards sometimes not come up for anyone? Sometimes I end up having to re-start whatever app I am using in order for the keyboard to pop up.
Click to expand...

It happens everyday for me in Messages with Swype. I ditched Swiftkey for the same behavior because it was happening even more frequently.
 
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