Those of you who are a part of theSwype beta for Android, you’ll be happy to know that you have an update waiting you. You need to be a registered beta tester in order to get access to this updated version of Swype, but if you are, you can expect many bug-fixes across the board.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like there’s a ton of brand-new features but here’s the change-log of the new version of Swype:
Added German and Portuguese languages
Added the auto-space suppression short-cut gesture: Swype from the spacebar to backspace
Added the quick language switch short-cut gesture: Swype from the Swype Key to the Q key
Improved the word prediction algorithm to provide better support for additional languages
Improved handling of several gesture collisions, including want/wasn’t, to/too and others
The Android IME no longer sometimes hangs/crashes when Swype scrapes the user’s address book for dictionary entries
Tips and help menus now accessible when a password field is active
Backspace now works in applications which use raw key input instead of an editable text field (e.g. terminal emulator)
The single character “i” is no longer incorrectly auto-capitalized in non-English languages (reported by many of you!)
Tons of other minor bug-fixes, including many device-specific issues
So there are bug-fixes, speed enhancements, and better word prediction within the update, and since it’s just a keyboard, that’s enough for us to want to get our hands on it. What we would like to see is the implementation of the voice-to-text features found on the stock Android keyboard. While it’s not something you may use everyday, it would still be nice to see it there, someday.
It’s suggested that you uninstall the current version of the keyboard you’re using, and then re-install with the new Swype Installer to avoid potential conflicts between the two versions.
If you’re one of the lucky ones who is a part of the beta testers, how do you like the update to one of the fastest keyboards available?
You can grab the update here to download the new installer from your phone.