I’ve tried lots of keyboard apps, but my favorite is still SwiftKey, due to its stellar text prediction, well laid-out keyboard, swipe functionality, and support for two languages at once.
While the latest version of SwiftKey for iOS adds some relatively minor new features, SwiftKey for Android now has a few major new features, including the new SwiftKey Hub (see photo), Dashlane password management, and adaptive layouts for speakers of Indian languages.
SwiftKey for Android new features
The new SwiftKey for Android now has a Hub that’s designed to be the home for all of the content and features you use most often. The Hub replaces the subset of settings previously accessible via long-pressing the ‘123’ key; you can tap or slide on the hamburger menu on the far left of the prediction bar for quick access to Personalize, the SwiftKey Store, and Settings.
The latest SwiftKey for Android also adds a new default theme called Carbon (dark grey, of course), and the ability to pre-enter your Dashlane passwords. If you’re already a Dashlane user, SwiftKey can securely predict exactly when you need your passwords, and make them instantly accessible. You can find more about how to use this feature here.
The new version also adds adaptive new layouts for its Hindi, Tamil, Gujarati, Marathi and Nepali languages. You can read a full rundown of these new layouts and languages here.
You can download SwiftKey for Android from the Play Store.
SwiftKey for iOS gets patriotic
SwiftKey for iPhone and iPad now includes Apple’s latest emoji, including new flags and the bonus Vulcan salute. Also, you can now change the emoji key on the keyboard back to the globe icon. Doing this does not turn the emoji panel off; instead, you’ll just long press the globe icon to get to your emoji. This change is especially useful if you use other keyboards more frequently than emoji.
To enable the emoji setting, open the SwiftKey app from your home screen, go into ‘Keyboard Settings’, then toggle on/off the ‘Quick Emoji Key’ option.
The iOS update also includes a number of stability and performance improvements. You can download SwiftKey for iOS from the App Store.
