One of the original third-party keyboard giants is dead. Swype keyboard has officially been discontinued. Swype was one of the first “swiping” keyboards on the market and for a time, was the go-to keyboard for many Android users. The keyboard was purchased by Nuance back in 2011 and in 2014 the keyboard made its debut on iOS. The keyboard has still had a strong following but competition in the space is significantly stronger now. But competition isn’t the reason Nuance is shelving Swype.
The company is exiting the direct-to-consumer market to concentrate on its business-to-business operations. Nuance is looking to move its resources to AI development for sale directly to businesses. Nuance has always been developing things like speech recognition and text to speech software. So moving all efforts into the AI side concentrating on b2b operations is probably what better suits the company. Besides, there are plenty of “swiping” style keyboards to choose from.
If you’re on Android, I’d suggest Chrooma Keyboard+ or Gboard. If you’re on iOS you could try GBoard or SwiftKey. Grammarly is another option for both Android and iOS that many have been talking about. It’s also important to be careful what keyboard apps you download on Android. Read the reviews before downloading, some of these apps could contain malware or adware.
Nuance did leave a message to users on their announcements page:
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.
What are your thoughts on Swype being discontinued? Did you use Swype? What alternative keyboards do you recommend we check out? Let us know in the comments below, or on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook.
[button link=”https://nuancemobility.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000513752-Swype-Keyboard-iOS-has-been-discontinued” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Nuance[/button]
