Type faster with this excellent virtual keyboard

SwiftKey Keyboard helps you type quicker on your Android touchscreen phone by predicting what you want to say. It also features a gesture-based input system known as Swiftkey Flow, which makes typing even faster.

Setting up SwiftKey Keyboard is easily done, thanks to a handy start-up screen. You’ll need to download a language module from a choice of nine (see below for the full list), and enable SwiftKey Keyboard as your default input method on your phone. Once you’ve done this you’ll see a new on-screen keyboard whenever you send a message or enter text.

Keys are laid out in QWERTY format, though the default setting is a bit thin for our liking. Luckily, you can customize key sizes in SwiftKey Keyboard though, as well as setting the color and design of the keyboard by choosing a them.

SwiftKey Keyboard’s predictive text engine is so powerful that it can generally guess the word you wanted within just two or three keystrokes. With every keystroke you make three possible words are suggested. You can select one by tapping or hit Space to go with the middle one, which is the one SwiftKey thinks is the most likely. SwiftKey Keyboard will even predict what the next word you want will be (and its accuracy here is impressive).

The SwiftKey Flow system, introduced in version 4 of SwiftKey allows you to enter words simply by drawing lines between letters on the keyboard, in much the same way that Swype does. Coupled with its powerful prediction and correction system, I would argue that writing in SwiftKey Keyboard is now even quicker than in Swype.

SwiftKey Flow is easy to pick up, though it can be a bit fiddly when all the letters you need for your word are in the same row on the keyboard.

To improve SwiftKey Keyboard’s accuracy is you can tell it to look at the history of your SMS, Facebook and Twitter messages to learn about the kind of words you use and the way you construct sentences. Of course, there are privacy concerns here, but the app is designed to scan for text only, as opposed to context.

There’s lots to explore in the SwiftKey Keyboard settings menu. It features more than 60 languages, of which you can enable three at a time; you can change the behavior of the space bar; access statistics about your SwiftKey Keyboard usage, and much more.

SwiftKey Keyboard lets you type on your phone much more quickly and is the best keyboard for Android replacement you’ll find. Even if you’re prone to making spelling mistakes, the app is great at detecting and correcting them automatically.

SwiftKey Flow: World’s most accurate gesture input, with next word predictionFlow Through Space: Gesture multiple words without lifting a fingerPersonalization: More thorough learning of your language and typing styleBetter predictions: Enhanced language engine, predictions in more text fieldsEasier corrections: Tap anywhere on a word to choose an alternative60 languages: Now including Albanian, Bosnian, Javanese, Sundanese, Thai, Vietnamese

Changes

• SwiftKey Flow: World’s most accurate gesture input, with next word predictionFlow Through Space: Gesture multiple words without lifting a fingerPersonalization: More thorough learning of your language and typing styleBetter predictions: Enhanced language engine, predictions in more text fieldsEasier corrections: Tap anywhere on a word to choose an alternative60 languages: Now including Albanian, Bosnian, Javanese, Sundanese, Thai, Vietnamese