Swype getting dumber?

I was a pretty big fan of Swype when I first started using it. It is an awesome concept; typing by simply dragging my thumb around the screen was almost magical in its usefulness. Before I installed Swype on my HTC Legend, using the stock HTC keyboard on its 3.2" screen was ok for 1 or 2 sentences but much more than that was, to say the least, trying at times.

What makes Swype really effective is its predictive text capabilities. I found it was really good at knowing what I wanted to type-- it would usually pick the right word for what I wanted, even if I wasn't dragging my thumb exactly over each letter.

But lately, in the last few months, the word prediction seems to have gone out the window. Now it picks just plain weird or STUPID words and I'm finding I have to correct a lot of words in every sentence I type. It's not that I accidentally saved a bunch of typos in my personal dictionary, either. I checked... and I am DOWNRIGHT VIGILANT about keeping mis-types out of my personal dictionary. I can't remove some of the weird words out of the Swype dictionary.

Whenever I type "is", it almost always puts in "OS". How often would I ever use the term "OS"? There are many other more bizarre examples... some of the "words" Swype tries to insert don't even sound like actual words to me. I also unchecked other languages in case that was the problem.

I can't figure out why Swype seems to be getting DUMBER. My phone is really underpowered, I've run out of internal phone memory, so that must play a part. I have an annoying bug where I'll swype some words but they won't show up in the text box. I have to exit the program then go back in. But I don't understand why the word prediction is getting worse rather than just staying the same?

Another part of it might be the user: as in, me. Maybe I've gotten so complacent that Swype will predict my words that I'm being sloppy in my dragging over the letters. Technically, software can't grow more stupid but a person certainly can....


It just seems so strange that Swype is not as good as it used to be for me, I haven't updated or changed it for the last few months. Maybe it's just me?



later
don

Swype update sucks

This latest build of Swype really is terrible.

It made me update the last time I posted about Swype. I don't know what they did, but it doesn't work with my HTC Legend running Android 2.1 as good as it used to. When I go to reply to a text, whatever I type will disappear right as soon as I type it. I have to exit the messaging program & re-enter it to get it to start working normally.

This bug also affects other text-input programs on my phone as well.

I may just have to dump Swype & go back to the stock keyboard.... why do they have to keep forcing updates on us & breaking the functionality of the keyboard in the process???

I get that Android is "constantly" coming out with updates & Swype wants to take advantage of the "improvements". But they don't have to screw over users with older Android builds... why not just leave the older versions of Swype on our phones & do the updates for newer phones, if there are so many issues with older Android compatibility?

Sigh. Swype can be so frustrating.



later
don

Swype - a total pain... but worth it

So a couple months or so, I downloaded Swype for my HTC Legend. Swype is an onscreen keyboard where you slide your thumb around the screen to connect letters to form words. Check out the videos on Youtube to see how it works... it looks awkward, but after using it these past 2 months.... I have to say I'm officially converted. The Swype method is AWESOME. My stock keyboard on my HTC Legend is pretty poor. What makes Swype so incredible is its word prediction, I don't know how it does it-- it has a very good sense of the word I'm looking for; even if sliding my thumb around the keyboard is sloppy, it seems to get it most of the time. The big problem with this method is that my thumb covers up the letters, so sometimes I have to stop & move my phone screen around to see where the next letter I need is. The good thing about this method is it's possible to type with one hand-- one thumb, really.

Swype is currently a free beta. Free is also awesome. But... there has to be a bad side somewhere, right? Where Swype really falls down is the "license expiring"... when it decides to, you have to uninstall the Swype installer, and re-install it, because the keyboard stops working, basically.

So I encountered this dark side of Swype the other day (luckily I was back from China, I actually was worried that it would expire while I was still there) and it was a total pain for me to reinstall. I had to try it a few times before it actually worked, as well as delete a large app (Pac-Man Championship Edition demo) to free up space... and I freely concede that that's an issue with my phone not having much internal space. But I think that each update of Swype gets re-jigged, and like all updates, some are good while some are not. There are some small issues with my latest version of Swype not playing well with my contacts editing. I don't know why that is other than they tweaked stuff.

Even with all this hassle, Swype is really good. I am envious of Samsung phones that have Swype included with it. Swype impressed me so much that I'm actually rethinking my main want in a new phone: that it has a physical keyboard. If I can get an onscreen keyboard comparable to Swype in usefulness, then a physical keyboard might not be needed. The key word being "might".

Oh Swype, why do you put me through such hell?



later
don