Swype Beta For Android Is Open, Temporarily

FyreWyr writes "In 2008 we discussed Swype, which allows a mobile (phone, e.g.) user to draw a path over a virtual keyboard to enter words, rather than requiring precise tapping to accomplish the input. Using this software, a Swype intern (Franklin Page) beat the Guinness record by about 6 WPM for the Guinness-standard phrase: The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human. (Unfortunately the video at that link is marked private.) TechCrunch reports that Swype is presently in open beta, and will be available for 'a couple of days,' supporting English, Spanish, and Italian entry. Finally, while the deadline has apparently passed, I was able to retrieve the Android beta for testing a few minutes ago. I'm posting it here for the benefit of Android-enabled Slashdot readers."

Comments

Already on

[yakumo.unr]

It's pre installed on the Samsung Galaxy S, you just have to click and hold on a text input field to get the menu up that lets you enable it.

Krogdor

[Krogdor]

I think the whole Guinness World Record thing is a bit skewed... The phrase is extremely well made for Swype. I know this wasn't intentional, but Swype excels at typing out extremely long and complicated words—the exact bane of most text inputs, and the reason that they are included in a world record phrase. Where Swype has trouble, however, is short words that are easily misinterpreted.

Re:Krogdor

[beanpoppa]

I've been using Swype for a little while now on my Droid, and you are right. Short words are more ambiguous, and harder for Swype to interpret. But Swype also lets you touch-type words like any other touch-screen keyboard. I've gotten into the habit of touch-typing out short words, and 'Swyping' the longer ones. While other touch-screen keyboards try to mimic the physical keyboard world (haptic feedback, etc), Swype embraces new methods that a touch-screen can bring about.

Dasher

[TeknoHog]

A "sweeping" mobile input method always reminds me of Dasher. I guess one reason why it doesn't get all the attention is that it must be tuned to a particular corpus of text, so it's not immediately usable like something qwerty-based.

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/

Well I'm certainly glad you posted this!

[56]

They definitely are still letting people download it - I just installed it on my HTC Magic. It works quite well, shocking so actually. In vertical one-handed typing, I'm already much faster and more accurate than I ever was with the regular keyboard. However, the swype idea doesn't make much sense for horizontal typing - there's no real way to use both hands so what's the point? I would prefer to be able to stick with the traditional keyboard for horizontal typing. That said, I'm going to stick with it for a few days and see how it goes under real-world circumstances.

Re:Swype is really awesome

[adolf]

I've been running Swype for months on my Motorola Droid. It works great, and it was not at all difficult to locate it using Google. AFAICT, it's been running on most or all Android phones for quite awhile (though mostly with questionable legality).

That said, it's great that the beta is open -- this way, I get to legally use Swype. Hopefully, some day, they'll actually let me pay for it -- I'd love to give these guys a few bucks.

Sweet, could be sweeter

[unfortunateson]

It beats the living snot out of the standard soft keyboard, and may be faster than the slider keyboard on my Moto Droid, except that I can use *two* thumbs on the slider.
I haven't yet gotten used to the right actions to say, "no, it's not one of those eight words" without having to reswype the whole word -- annoying on lengthy words. It's accuracy is pretty darn good anyway, even if I swerve because I'm going the wrong way toward a letter, it often gets the right word.

Only app I haven't gotten it to work on is Twisty, an interactive fiction interpreter -- it would be a big help there.