It would appear that the original swiping-based keyboard is no longer around. Nuance has confirmed that it is no longer supporting Swype, and has redirected all efforts into working on the direct-to-business Dragon dictation technology.
The change in direction for Nuance wasn’t widely made known, and only recently discovered from a Reddit user contacted support for help with a crash problem on the Pixel 2. In response, Nuance said:
“However, we are sad to announce that Swype+Dragon for Android has faced end of development. Here is a statement from Swype Product Team:
Nuance will no longer be updating the Swype+Dragon keyboard for Android. We’re sorry to leave the direct-to-consumer keyboard business, but this change is necessary to allow us to concentrate on developing our AI solutions for sale directly to businesses.
We hope you enjoyed using Swype, we sure enjoyed working with the Swype community.”
XDA Developers then reached out to the company to confirm the statement, and were told that development on Swype+Dragon has been stopped. Nuance had also apparently made a Zendesk post saying that it would be stopping work on the iOS version of Swype earlier this month; which seems to have gone unnoticed.
Swype has proven to be one of the more popular mobile keyboard apps available, although its popularity has waned with the arrival of Swiftkey and Google’s own Gboard. That said, there are likely more than a few Swype users who will be disappointed by the news.
For now, the Swype app is still available on the Google Play store; and chances are it won’t be fully taken down. Just keep in mind that no future updates are coming and that it might stop working as both Android and iOS introduce new updates.
[Source: Reddit, XDA Developers]
