… and if so, what are your experiences with Swype + Fairphone? I’ve used Swype on a previous phone and loved it… it’s still good, but with occasional issues, and I’m not sure what causes this.
The main problem is a delay between keyboard gestures and words appearing on the screen. Sometimes the app slows right down, so if I type (swype) several words quickly, I can watch as they gradually appear on the screen. This shouldn’t be an issue with a powerful processor like the Fairphone has. Not sure whether this is a problem with the more recent versions of Swype, or a compatibility issue with Fairphone OS, or Android, or… ?
I used Swype from its earliest days but gave up on it last year, it just became too inaccurate and sluggish, it was particularly bad on longer emails, as it got progressively slower, I’m currently using the google keyboard and I’m happy enough with that.
I’m using swype but don’t experience the problems that you have suggested (other than the slowness).
I do agree with @Reid_Sommerville that it gets sluggish the longer you are typing at something whether it be Facebook, email or just a simple text. It’s annoying and I may have to move to the Google keyboard (which I have installed anyway)
I’m using swype too and i experience the same behaviour like the others, but for me it doesn’t matter.
Thanks for the tipp about Google Keyboard, maybe i’ll try it.
I am using Swype currently, after a lengthy period of trying to work with Google Keyboard. I was surprised how good it actually was, compared to the latter. I can confirm that it’s sometimes quite sluggish. However, I did not find a regularity in the behaviour.
I did notice the same as Chris: it’s especially slow with longer texts. Apparently Swype is really taking into account everything you wrote to predict your next words. I noticed this when I used it to writing texts back and forth about some quite specific stuff, repeatedly using technical expressions. It even started to predict stuff I hadn’t even begun to write - correctly. (Uncanny application of science, my word!)
But on other occasions, it’s just slow without an apparent reason. Sometimes, a toast notification pops up to “choose my input method” while I am using Swype. Could it be that the app sometimes restarts itself silently, even while writing?
Just BTW: I used XPrivacy to feed Swype fake info on my location. I was quite intrigued that a keyboard app was actually accessing this kind of information. Don’t see why this should be necessary as long as I only use the keyboard. (If I would use the voice recognition feature, maybe it could use location data to find the nearest servers, but as far as I understand, this should not be needed for keyboard swiping.)
I use it and it gets slow sometimes.
I also only use it in French. I happen to text both in English and French but I tried having the English and French keyboards and Swype would guess words in the wrong language.
Thanks for the tip about google keyboard.
Thanks everyone - glad it’s not just me noticing the slowness.
I think what disappoints me so much is that it used to be incredibly fast… even on a crappy old phone, there was no delay at all. Sometimes now (FP1, latest Swype version) I’ll be typing and realise it’s a whole word behind me.
Thanks for the Google keyboard suggestion, @Reid_Sommerville - I’ll try it out.