I still remember the feeling I got when I first tried the SwiftKey keyboard over 10 years ago. It was, of course, on an Android smartphone (I think I remember an HTC, but I’m not so sure about that), and seeing how to slide your finger across the screen, without lifting it, on the keys that represented the letters you wanted to use, It meant that what I wanted was automatically typed… in short, it was an incredible feeling, and one of the reasons why, being already an iPhone user, I considered the possibility (which I finally ruled out) of making the leap to Android.
Over the years, more keyboards have appeared, both for Android and iOS, that use this writing system, but despite this, to have more competition, both the prestige cultivated in its early days and its evolution, have caused it to continue to be the reference app in this regard. I don’t have the absolute data of the most used keyboards on both Android and iOS, but I do know that SwiftKey is in the top positions on both platforms.
Well, it seems like it was yesterday, but It’s been eight years since SwiftKey made the then highly, highly anticipated leap to iOS.. Needless to say, I didn’t have time, at that time, to install it on my iPhone and, since then, it has been the keyboard that I have used the most (although not the only one, I also want to clarify this). And when it was acquired by Microsoft two years later, many of us understood that it was one more way for Microsoft to improve its presence on Android and iOS, a very smart move, in my opinion.
However, and for a little over a year now, Microsoft has not updated SwiftKey for iOS, despite the fact that it has done so for Android, something that has sparked suspicions, for some time now, that Microsoft could be Thinking of getting your smart keyboard out of iOS. And this, which until now were theories and rumours, has sadly been confirmed. And it is that, as we can read in Softpedia, As of October 5, support for SwiftKey iOS will end and it will be removed from the Apple App Store.
Reasons? Surely there are, but at least for now they have not transpired, and it surprises that Microsoft gives up the quota of presence in iOS that SwiftKey has provided so far. It is true that, of course, due to its very nature as a keyboard, it can have full access to the data entered by the user (just like any other keyboard, really), so the question comes from whether the decision could have to do with the Apple’s security and privacy policies. However, the fact that other keyboards, such as Google’s Gboard, do remain on iOS, makes that possibility a bit farther away.
Be that as it may, those users who already have SwiftKey on iOS, or who download it before October 5, they can continue to use it after that date. However, we must not forget that we are talking about an app that has not been updated for more than a year, which in terms of security does not sound very rewarding. And it’s a shame, because it’s not only one of the most used keyboards, but also one of the best rated in the App Store.
