SwiftKey is making its biggest move yet by offering one of the top paid apps on Android free along with new features, themes and more.
SwiftKey, the popular keyboard for Android phones and tablets, is challenging its rivals in the industry by making its premium app available for free on Google Play Store. The move comes just days after Apple opened doors for third-party keyboards on its latest mobile operating platform, iOS8, and announced its own predictive keyboard, QuickType, which is closely identical to SwiftKey's three word prediction interface. By dropping the $3.99 price tag from its Android app, SwiftKey is looking at ways to attract more customers to strengthen its user-base on Android ahead of its iOS8 debut later this year.
SwiftKey already confirmed that the company has been working on an iOS version, keeping its core functionalities such as predictive text, swipe text and more. In addition to making the app free on Android, SwiftKey welcomes a slew of new features including new themes, emojis, emoji prediction, new languages and more. As a gesture of gratitude toward its existing premium customers, the company is offering a premium pack of 10 new themes worth $4.99 to download for free.
The keyboard app was designed to replace the standard Android keyboard and learn from users' typing style. It boasts accurate auto-correction feature and SwiftKey Flow, which types words as users slide their finger across the screen. The app has received favorable response in major news publication reviews.
The details of the update include a dedicated SwiftKey Store that is loaded with over 30 new free and premium themes to make the keyboards unique. Even as it promotes the paid themes after making the app free on Android, SwiftKey embraced a new default theme called Nickel, which is based on the original Cobalt theme.
Other changes include a pack of over 800 emoji for devices running Android 4.1 and above. The prediction engine is also improved to predict emoji while typing. For instance, typing "burg" will show burger emoji to select. Users can turn the new feature on by navigating to Settings > Advanced and select Emoji Prediction.
SwiftKey for Android also includes an optional number row without switching the layout or long pressing letters. The feature is available in Layout under Settings. In addition, the keyboard app also features accurate gesture typing, improved word prediction and new language support, which brings the total to 66.
SwiftKey for Android is available for download from Google Play Store.
