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The popular keyboard app SwiftKey has finally ended its period of beta testing and is now available to all users of Google Android devices, and SwiftKey Cloud will be part of SwiftKey 4.2, a free update for existing users.
As part of the promotion for the release, SwiftKey will be half off for new users, at $2.99 on Google Play, for a limited time. SwiftKey can also be purchased from the Amazon App Store and Android PIT, a company release noted. New features for the latest release include the ability to back up and sync a personal writing style across multiple devices, creating a cloud-based hub for each user’s personal language profile.
With backup, if the user’s smartphone or tablet is upgraded, lost or stolen, the personal profile is kept safe in the cloud, allowing the user to reclaim the same settings after installing the app on a new device. In addition, with Sync, the words and phrases that matter the most to the user are shared across all the user’s devices.
The app understands how words work together to give much more accurate corrections and predictions than other keyboards. It can even predict a user’s next word as he or she types and also learns over time to make typing easier and even more accurate. A company blog post also noted all of SwiftKey Cloud’s features are subject to the company’s privacy policy. SwiftKey has also published a new data security policy to give users more confidence about the measures they take to protect personal data.
SwiftKey 4.2 also comes with a range of other new features, including a clearer settings menu and enhanced configuration options for devices with a built-in or Bluetooth-attached physical keyboard. SwiftKey Cloud makes it easier for users to tailor next-word predictions and auto-corrections. Full integration with the Gmail and Facebook application programming interfaces (APIs) allows for personalization for accounts registered on the user’s device, and Yahoo Mail has been added alongside Twitter, RSS and SMS personalization options.
In addition, SwiftKey’s technology analyzes Twitter and other news sources to sift out the most relevant daily discussions and localized trending topics. This feature now supports more languages, including American, British, Australian English, Arabic, Dutch, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Latin American Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.
“We’re incredibly excited to bring the power of our predictions to our users wherever they are,” SwiftKey co-founder and CTO Ben Medlock said in a statement. “We know an increasing number of people have multiple devices that they use in different settings. With today’s update, our users can now carry their personal experience with them across all their devices and receive words and phrases based on the news near them.”
The company’s technology is designed to make typing easier on touch-screen devices, powering the text-entry experience with intelligent, natural language technology. The company first debuted the SwiftKey keyboard app on Android in July 2010.