SwiftKey has finally made its way out of beta status, and the full version is now available on the Android Market for £0.60 (about 94 cents). I'm one of SwiftKey's biggest fans, and even after using it through all the beta versions I'm still amazed at the prediction algorithm. In case you're unfamiliar with how it works, have a look here and you'll see why the beta hit over 100,000 downloads within a few days of its release. It really is that good at word prediction. The changes are available to read at SwiftKey's blog, and consist mostly killing off any bugs that crept up at the last minute. We have the full press release from TouchType, download links, and a video of SwiftKey in action after the break. [SwiftKey]
YouTube link for mobile viewing
Touchscreen typing app uses AI to write for you
LONDON, UK – SwiftKey™, a new keyboard app for Google Android smartphones that uses breakthrough artificial intelligence (AI) technology, launched on Thursday after receiving more than 250,000 downloads during its public beta. The app’s AI learns a user’s writing style to complete words and sentences for them, offering an unrivalled touchscreen typing experience.
About a third of words can be accurately predicted by SwiftKey before a user taps a key and the majority of remaining words only require one or two key-presses to type, speeding up SMS or email composition by up to 50%.
London-based developers TouchType Ltd launched the app following the popular beta, which saw SwiftKey become the most downloaded keyboard on the Android Market amid hundreds of positive reviews. Tech blog Gizmodo wrote, “The star feature of SwiftKey is its predictive text -- it literally learns the way you type.” Engadget said the app has “an uncanny ability” to guess your next word. “It’s like a psychic, only for less money,” wrote Mobile Crunch.
The key is TouchType’s Fluency™ prediction engine, which uses new techniques to analyze billions of sentences of background text to understand how words combine. The technology can also learn from users’ message archives and their typing over time to provide eerily accurate personalization.
“We were overwhelmed by the success of SwiftKey’s beta launch, the response from users and the positive reviews,” TouchType CEO Jon Reynolds said. “SwiftKey is already one of the most popular keyboards on Android. We hope to continue that trend now with our enhanced full version.”
The new app supports voice dictation and multi-touch, has a new keyboard layout including a numpad and arrow keys, and can make simultaneous predictions in two languages. To celebrate the launch, TouchType is giving SwiftKey away for just $0.99 for the next week on the Android Market, a three-dollar discount.
Dr. Ben Medlock, TouchType’s CTO, said, “Not only is SwiftKey the first keyboard app to harness the incredible power of statistical language processing; it’s now the first keyboard to offer multiple-language prediction – an amazing breakthrough for bilingual smartphone users.”
Medlock said these innovations are just the beginning. “We’re developing new techniques based on machine learning that will blow away today’s keyboard technology. Watch this space.”
SwiftKey offers predictions in US English, UK English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch and Swedish, with many new languages coming shortly.
