Surely you will remember it, just a week ago we told you that Microsoft had started testing the integration of the new Bing in Swiftkey. As we explained to you then, the initial plans called for a slow deployment of this feature in the Swiftkey beta channel for Android, without any news about when its full deployment would take place on that operating system, and if it would come to iOS (although we could give of course yes) and, if so, when.
It seems, however, that the concept of “slow deployment” is much more flexible than we might think. And it is that, as we can read in The Verge, the tests have finished and Swiftkey version with new Bing integration is now available for Android and iOS. And no, in case you’re thinking about it, I’m not referring to the beta versions for both operating systems, no, we’re talking about the final versions, that is, those that any user can download.
This new Bing integration comes along with expanding the reach of the chatbot on Skypewhose first integration occurred a few days after the announcement of the new Bing, and its inclusion in the Start appa little-known Microsoft app that integrates news and weather information, a bit in the style of what we can already find in the home page of Microsoft Edge and in the Discover section of Google Chrome for Android and iOS.
On the one hand, we expected this feature to come to Swiftkey for iOS, as Microsoft clearly wants to maximize the reach of the new Bing. However, let’s remember that the company recently decided to discontinue and later restore this keyboard from the Apple App Store, which made us doubt the trust they place, today, in this version.
Confirmed then, its arrival in both operating systems, the next thing is to focus on its functions, which are three: Search, Tone and Chat. As you can deduce, the first allows us to carry out a search on Bing, while the third will take us directly to a conversation with the chatbot. The newest and most contextual is, without a doubt, Tone, with which after writing a message and before sending it, we can review it to receive style suggestions, if we want it to be formal, informal, polite, etc. This function, yes, at least for now only works in English (although this is an advantage for those who need a translator).
