Microsoft discontinues SwiftKey keyboard

End for SwiftKey

There weren't that many swipe keyboards for the iPhone anymore. Now Microsoft has announced that it will also discontinue the ever-popular SwiftKey keyboard. The app will be pulled from the App Store on October 5, 2022. No reason is given, but it may have something to do with Apple's QuickPath swipe keyboard, leaving little credit to be gained from a third party keyboard.

The range of swipe keyboards had dwindled considerably in recent years. In fact, now only Google's Fleksy and Gboard are left. SwiftKey users can go to data.swiftkey.com to get their data.

SwiftKey appeared in 2014, when we were still on iOS 8. In our SwiftKey review, we noted:

Now that SwiftKey Keyboard is in Dutch, you can no longer ignore this alternative keyboard on the iPhone and iPad. SwiftKey is brilliant. It allows you to write faster with swipes, to write faster with one finger and to write faster with single-word typing – because SwiftKey has a convincing, machine-learning dictionary and provides perfect word suggestions based on it. If you can live with the app's privacy policy, there's nothing stopping you from trying SwiftKey Keyboard and perhaps continuing to use it as the default keyboard on iOS.

Later, the app got predictive emoji and paid themes. But there were also less pleasant moments: customer data leaked out. Microsoft brought in the app in 2016, but since 2017 no new functions have been added. The app did get a name change to Microsoft SwiftKey in 2020. If you want to, you can still download the app while it lasts. You can have two languages ​​active at the same time and can choose from as many as 150 languages, including Dutch. SwiftKey is free, but themes often require payment through in-app purchases.

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