Your thoughts on Swift Key Flow vs Swype

[gtbarry]

I have been using Swift Key Flow since the beta came out. Before that I was a dedicated Swype user. I have also used SlideIT and Swift Key. Briefly I also tried TouchPal and The Jelly Bean Gesture keyboard.

My personal choice has come down to Swift Key Flow or Swype. And I am leaning now towards Swype.

After using SK Flow from the day the beta launched. I have switched to swype just the other day and I found it much more intuitive to me for the following reasons:

- I don't have to ever think about whether or not I can swipe or have to tap.
- editing and correcting is easier when you don't have the word suggestions change constantly depending on where you click on the word you want to edit
- Word suggestion in swype, while inferior to SK Flow, is not significantly worse. (And on a side note, I swapped to regular SK the other day and I found the word prediction significantly better than Flow. Perhaps because I am using suggested words more often when tapping?)
- voice to text is about a tie between the two
- accuracy of letters for my swiping patterns is very slightly better in swype


I am going to switch back to SK Flow for a bit. And the 4.2 keyboard also. But it looks like I am going to settle on swype with SK Flow (I own regular SK and therefore will get Flow once it is out of beta) as a fall back.

 

[tcat007]

Have Swype on my phone. Had it on my Nexus 7 for a while, uninstalled after liking the Android 4.2 swiper better. Tried Swiftkey Flow for a week, too many fields where it wouldn't Swipe, so went back to Android.

Then I tried Kii keyboard, and deleted all others. Kii is most configurable, seems to work as well as any of them.

 

[leeanne172]

I tried the swiftkey flow for awhile but went back to swype because flow doesn't work in all fields, I prefer a program that allows you to use the flow/swype all of the time not just some of the time

 

[UncleMike]

I've tried each beta of SwiftKey Flow for a few days and have gone back to Swype for several reasons: 1) flow isn't enabled for all fields, 2) after I'm done flowing, SwiftKey offers suggestions for the next word instead of possible corrections to the previous word, which for me requires more corrections than with Swype, 3) selecting a word and correcting it is much easier with Swype, 4) capitalizing words is much easier with Swype.

Even though I bought SwiftKey and would very much like to not be using a beta keyboard forever, SwiftKey Flow has a long way to go before it will replace Swype on my phone.

 

[ipersian]

I tried both, swiftkey at first was promising but little by little the bugs revealed themselves,. the second failiure was about predicting the swiped characters, in swype if you make one or two mistakes amazingly your word shows up on the screen but I didn't find swiftkey helpful in this respect and I had to lessen my speed to be more accurate, finally I uninstalled swiftkey :-(

 

[bruce73]

Have Swype on my phone. Had it on my Nexus 7 for a while, uninstalled after liking the Android 4.2 swiper better. Tried Swiftkey Flow for a week, too many fields where it wouldn't Swipe, so went back to Android.

Then I tried Kii keyboard, and deleted all others. Kii is most configurable, seems to work as well as any of them.

Totally agree. Kii is the answer, plain and simple. It's damn near perfect.

 

[Methos1979]

Wow - glad I stumbled upon this thread! I was just getting ready to go back and try Swype to see how it stacked up against SwiftKey Flow. Like the OP I have been 'test driving' SKF since the first beta and I like it but there are limitations.

But I've just spent a half hour installing and configuring Kii and I'm impressed initially. The one thing I have not been able to accomplish is to change the color of the alternate keys. And they are so small they are very hard to see and I have pretty good vision. If I could change to a brighter color it would be helpful. Any ideas?

 

[Methos1979]

Have Swype on my phone. Had it on my Nexus 7 for a while, uninstalled after liking the Android 4.2 swiper better. Tried Swiftkey Flow for a week, too many fields where it wouldn't Swipe, so went back to Android.

Then I tried Kii keyboard, and deleted all others. Kii is most configurable, seems to work as well as any of them.

Tcat - what keyboard is this? Did you 'build' it within Kii or is it from a download?

 

[tcat007]

Kii, with "Storm" theme. You can download almost any keyboard theme and most work with Kii. You can also go into settings of Kii and change key size and text colors of the 3rd party theme. Add number and/or arrow row. All the settings that say "Pro" are usable on the beta, so you can color the secondary text to make it much more readable.

 

[nottstu]

All very well but have none of you tried messagease ??
I've tried most of the above but never giaen them a second thought since discovering mesagease.
Takes a bit more to learn but well well worthwhile - especially the macro function.

 

[tcat007]

Find something new each day, thanks! Will try it, but sure looks strange!

All very well but have none of you tried messagease ??
I've tried most of the above but never giaen them a second thought since discovering mesagease.
Takes a bit more to learn but well well worthwhile - especially the macro function.

 

[Methos1979]

Kii, with "Storm" theme. You can download almost any keyboard theme and most work with Kii. You can also go into settings of Kii and change key size and text colors of the 3rd party theme. Add number and/or arrow row. All the settings that say "Pro" are usable on the beta, so you can color the secondary text to make it much more readable.

I tried changing the color of the secondary text but it doesn't seem to work. I'll try some themes.

 

[tcat007]

Make sure you have the box checked.

I tried changing the color of the secondary text but it doesn't seem to work. I'll try some themes.

 

[Methos1979]

I did and it still didn't work but then when I installed the Storm one it did. But when I went back it didn't. Weird.

 

[Methos1979]

I hope they fix it soon. Seems to work in some stock keyboards but not all.

 

[Sak01]

Does Swift Key Flow produce the same standard of predictions as Swiftkey 3 in tapping mode or does it use a different prediction engine?

 

[paulbates]

I am a long time swype and slideIt user who switched to thumb keyboard last month ..swype/slide it are great for phones but the drag distances are eternal on a 7" tablet. Once your used to it its faster on smaller phone screens too.

 

[shelliewnj]

Just got Kii thanks! So much easier than the original. Takes some getting used to tho