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Comment by drivebyacct2 | Hacker News Reader

I remember using this when Swype was just new. It is very unwieldy and I tried it for a week or two of heavy frustration.

The Gesture swiping built into 4.2 is hard to beat. Between the fast two handed operation with good correction and the freaky fast voice transcription, it's hard to want to deviate from the stock keyboard.

Honestly, the demo video makes it look painfully slow, even when he's doing a full demo sentence compared to what I'm used to.

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I've been using gesture typing and regular typing on my phone and my tablet. The muscle memory from one has flown into the other quite nicely. However, something like this would require me to relearn how I type altogether.

Something that, as someone who uses their phone and tablet for valuable emails all the time, I don't have time for.

I thought Swype and Gesture swiping were more or less the same. What's the difference?

Swype only lets some users via a "beta program" use the app. It has a cumbersome installer that never works on the first try. I like the style of the stock keyboard as well as a few of the layout nags. Finally, the Google keyboard also includes fast access to the text-to-voice app. That and I think the algorithm is flatly better than swype. (Swype was always more of a gimmick, especially after Gingerbread when the stock keyboard got a big upgrade. Gesture with the Google keyboard is something I use 75% of the time I'm typing)

I'm pretty sure he meant functionality-wise. As in, same sorts of gestures and such.

Swype is available for everyone, without registration: http://beta.swype.com It may have been that you needed to be approved before. But not anymore.

If you regularly write in multiple languages, Swiftkey3 is the way to go.

I've been using Swiftkey Flow Beta, and it's fantastic! You're right, Swiftkey's killer feature is the way it handles multiple languages without hassle. It is the difference between people hating touch screen keyboards and loving them. If I were an Android handset provider in a multi-language country I would install it by default on all phones. Android would blow all other platforms out of the water in no time then.

Does it do them at the same time?

I know on the Google keyboard you just slide (click and drag finger) across the keyboard to change languages..

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