For those of you who haven’t heard about it yet, the revolutionary virtual keyboard app, “Swype”, is now officially accepting beta testers. This is quite exciting because the beta release boasts significant improvements over the leaked pre-release that has been floating around the forums and twitter. The response time, stability, and presentation of the app have been improved substantially.
As described by the developers,
“Swype provides a faster and easier way to input text on any screen. With one continuous finger or stylus motion across the screen keyboard, the patented technology enables users to input words faster and easier than other data input methods—at over 50 words per minute. The application is designed to work across a variety of devices such as phones, tablets, game consoles, kiosks, televisions, virtual screens and more.”
I highly recommend checking it out, as it is currently available for free as a beta. I’ve used numerous virtual keyboards and find Swype to be a refreshing change from HTC_IME, BetterKeyboard, SmartKeyboard, and all the other similar apps that are available on the market.
Go to http://beta.swype.com/ to sign up and download the installer. You won’t regret it!
Also, Go to http://www.swypeinc.com/tips-tricks.html to get some tips and tricks about how to get the most out of Swype.
EDIT: There seems to be a major bug with the Swype Beta digital right management that is preventing a lot of users from getting full functionality out of the app. The error usually states something like “unauthorized device” and “Swype will now have only limited functionality”. Please email AndroidBeta@swype.com and post on their forum ( http://swype.uservoice.com ) if you are encountering such issue, and hopefully they will work this out prior to the actual release. Huge thanks to Ryan from Swype for assisting with this issue (see comments).
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I’ve just installed it on my G1 running openeclair 1.2.2. It seem to be working fine so far. It has a lot of potential to change how we enter text into smartphones without a physical keyboard. That said, if google voice’s input gets better, the two technologies will compete big time. For now, I’m loving both.
I’ve just installed it on my G1 running openeclair 1.2.2. It seem to be working fine so far. It has a lot of potential to change how we enter text into smartphones without a physical keyboard. That said, if google voice’s input gets better, the two technologies will compete big time. For now, I’m loving both.
Installed on my G1 running htcclay fasttest 2.9… had reinstall once but after i did that now it works fine.. I love the look of the keyboard little bigger and easier (even if your just using it normally) but swyping is totally eerie cool like 2001 a Space Odyssey future cool… anyway, works awesome, very exciting!
Installed on my G1 running htcclay fasttest 2.9… had reinstall once but after i did that now it works fine.. I love the look of the keyboard little bigger and easier (even if your just using it normally) but swyping is totally eerie cool like 2001 a Space Odyssey future cool… anyway, works awesome, very exciting!
Got it running on my N!, works awesome..is a bug when you reboot, but there a few ways around it.
Got it running on my N!, works awesome..is a bug when you reboot, but there a few ways around it.
You cannot simply download the installerapp as it ask for your username and password when you first run it. Figured I’d let you know.
You cannot simply download the installer\app as it ask for your username and password when you first run it. Figured I’d let you know.
Please see the “EDIT” portion of the article regarding issues with “unauthorized devices” and DRM
Please see the “EDIT” portion of the article regarding issues with “unauthorized devices” and DRM
Mytouch3g with Fasttest 2.9, and I get the “unauthorized device” issue, even after reinstalling and switching between the regular keyboard and Swype (and killing the process, etc).
I was looking forward to this, but it seems I’m not the only one still having issues after the “fix”.
Mytouch3g with Fasttest 2.9, and I get the “unauthorized device” issue, even after reinstalling and switching between the regular keyboard and Swype (and killing the process, etc).
I was looking forward to this, but it seems I’m not the only one still having issues after the “fix”.
Just wanted to update everyone on the bug mentioned by Jason:
If you cannot Swype and can only tap, it is likely that you have power cycled your phone after installing Swype. To work around this problem all you have to do is switch to a different keyboard and then switch back. That will hold until you restart your device again. Here are the steps in detail until a future update is made available:
Press on and edit field and hold to bring up the menu
Select Input Method
Select “Android keyboard”
Press on and edit field and hold to bring up the menu
Select Input Method
Select “Swype”
It turns out that as Swype is loading after a restart, certain Android framework components that we rely on have not finished initializing. Again, sorry for this inconvenience, we will get this fixed as soon as we can.
Just wanted to update everyone on the bug mentioned by Jason:
If you cannot Swype and can only tap, it is likely that you have power cycled your phone after installing Swype. To work around this problem all you have to do is switch to a different keyboard and then switch back. That will hold until you restart your device again. Here are the steps in detail until a future update is made available:
Press on and edit field and hold to bring up the menu
Select Input Method
Select “Android keyboard”
Press on and edit field and hold to bring up the menu
Select Input Method
Select “Swype”
It turns out that as Swype is loading after a restart, certain Android framework components that we rely on have not finished initializing. Again, sorry for this inconvenience, we will get this fixed as soon as we can.
Richard, I don’t know what more I can tell you, if you had Swype working initially, this workaround seems to fix it. If not, please post of the forum so that we can track the issue more closely.
Richard, I don’t know what more I can tell you, if you had Swype working initially, this workaround seems to fix it. If not, please post of the forum so that we can track the issue more closely.
Thanks Ryan for the response. Will try the recommended fix and hope it works. Looking forward to the next beta release, which hopefully wont have this issue. In the end, your app is very well developed, and I hope to see a permanent fix soon. Thanks again, and we appreciate you posting the fix on here.
Thanks Ryan for the response. Will try the recommended fix and hope it works. Looking forward to the next beta release, which hopefully wont have this issue. In the end, your app is very well developed, and I hope to see a permanent fix soon. Thanks again, and we appreciate you posting the fix on here.