SwiftKey vs Standard Nexus 5 Keyboard

[JeffDenver]

I keep seeing people drooling over the SwiftKey Keyboard app. Heck, it's in Alex's "Editors' top apps" article:

Editors' top apps: Alex's picks for 2013 | Android Central

I'm new to Android phones, but this standard keyboard app that comes on the Nexus 5 seems perfectly fine to me. What's the advantage of SwiftKey?

I agree, the standard keyboard is "fine". Not great, but fine. Thats actually an improvement over previous generations of Android keyboards, where they were "poor" to "barely adequate".

Swiftkey is "great" though. It is far more customizable and has perks like the "@" symbol auto-inserting "@gmail.com" or other major domains with a longpress. You can adjust things like what tapping the spacebar does, or how quickly a longpress brings up the alternate character for a key. And frankly, the keyboard itself just seems a lot easier to type on. Maybe because you can adjust key size as well.

All these things combine to make Swiftkey the envy of everyone...even many Apple users. That is remarkable because iOS has always had a great keyboard.

 

[LegalAmerican]

SwiftKey was an absolute MUST when I had my S3. Samsung's keyboard was an absolute kick in the package. But with the Nexus 5, i've stuck with the stock keyboard and haven't missed SwiftKey at all. I had an odd experience with SwiftKey though. I always read that it gets better the more you use it, and that it gets incredible with word prediction. But for me, it seemed to get worse at times. Like the words it would assume I was "flowing" were just absolutely outrageous. I mean if you flow through "H-U-R-R-Y" you'd think that a very common word people would use would be "Hurry" and that's the word they'd insert. Well I always got "Guppy". I have NO idea how or why as I never flowed my finger through the 'P' on the keyboard. It would recommend "Sasquatch" and other uncommon words as well. It got to the point that I swore they were trolling me. And I was even signed up as a tester for them and would provide feedback when they'd release a new Beta version.

I find my stress and frustration levels are so much lower with the stock keyboard now. My only complaint is that when I want to swype a short word like: "it" or "The", it doesn't pick up my swyping gesture and only inserts the first letter of that word, or the last one.

 

[tgp]

That is remarkable because iOS has always had a great keyboard.

iOS does have a great keyboard. The prediction and accuracy is very good. But it has one major flaw: it doesn't have a numbers row or special characters without switching modes. But I imagine the reason is that the iPhone's screen is so small that they couldn't take up any more space than absolutely necessary. I find WP's keyboard to be similar to iOS's in prediction & accuracy, but I'd rate it higher because of having the numbers row. But, neither iOS nor WP have the sliding feature. That's an unpardonable sin!

 

[Rayzaa]

The stock keyboard is fine as is Swiftkey but for me, the best one is still Kii. Its all personal preference.

 

[srkmagnus]

The stock keyboard is fine as is Swiftkey but for me, the best one is still Kii. Its all personal preference.

I agree. It's all personal preference and I'm just glad to see good alternatives available in the Play Store for people to use.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[chronophilos]

The one thing that Swiftkey and Swype still have over the Google keyboard is the ability to use two languages at the same time. Other than that, the Google keyboard is my favorite.

 

[milkycrazy]

The one thing that Swiftkey and Swype still have over the Google keyboard is the ability to use two languages at the same time. Other than that, the Google keyboard is my favorite.

Exactly. I've been using using SwiftKey on an HTC One X for more than a year, and the killer feature for me is the ability to start typing in any of the three languages I use, and have pretty accurate completion.

I'm now waiting for my Nexus 5 to arrive, and I'm a bit concerned whether third party keyboards will make the phone slower. The SwiftKey keyboard takes a while to appear on my HTC One X, but agreed, it's already a slow phone. Any observations on the effect of keyboard choice on performance?

 

[Dave Clark]

The big thing for me is it adds a space in after a comma or fullstop. Which is a real pet hate of mine on the stock or any other keyboard for that matter. It can also get predictions from your sms, email and social network accounts. Although still no support for g+, which is what I use the most.

 

[ptonantryloc]

I'm now waiting for my Nexus 5 to arrive, and I'm a bit concerned whether third party keyboards will make the phone slower. The SwiftKey keyboard takes a while to appear on my HTC One X, but agreed, it's already a slow phone. Any observations on the effect of keyboard choice on performance?

I've never seen anything lag on the Nexus 5. But, specific to your question, the SwiftKey keyboard comes up instantly as far as I can tell (well, it might take a quarter of a second).

 

[Closingracer]

iOS does have a great keyboard. The prediction and accuracy is very good. But it has one major flaw: it doesn't have a numbers row or special characters without switching modes. But I imagine the reason is that the iPhone's screen is so small that they couldn't take up any more space than absolutely necessary. I find WP's keyboard to be similar to iOS's in prediction & accuracy, but I'd rate it higher because of having the numbers row. But, neither iOS nor WP have the sliding feature. That's an unpardonable sin!

I own a ipad, nexus 5 and a Gs4 and by far I prefer the ipad keyboard predictability but given it has no option to do numbers even as long presses my favorite is swiftkey... That being said I would honestly stick with Google's keyboard until Swiftkey is on sale because it does so every few months it seems ( I bought it for like $1-$2 dollars myself

 

[the tall guy]

Ive used swiftkey on all my Android devices, and the Nexus 5 is the first time I've not re-installed it. I really like the simplicity of the Google keyboard, plain colours, nothing fancy, just smooth and clean. It also compliments Hangouts well

 

[ptonantryloc]

When I started this thread, I was perfectly happy with the Nexus 5 standard keyboard, too. I tried the SwiftKey trial and thought, "meh: not that different," and let it lapse. Shortly thereafter, I actually bought the full version of SwiftKey. The difference in the predictive text between the standard keyboard and SwiftKey's was enough to tip me over the edge.

 

[the tall guy]

yeah, Swiftkey does have great predictive text, when I used to use it before it would predict the whole text for me (I would send the same template text to my wife daily lol) If Swiftkey got a theme similar to the Google keyboard I might be considered to jump back again.