Android typing app promises speed boost

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A new app is claiming to radically boost the time it takes to type on a touchscreen.

Like predictive text systems before it, mobile developer TouchType's SwiftKey app predicts whole words as people type them, but according to its maker it improves on existing software by also understanding context.

“We are really pleased to be able to launch [the] SwiftKey beta after two years of hard work,” said TouchType chief executive (CEO) Jon Reynolds.

“The incredible technology underpinning our application completely changes the way mobile users interact with their smartphones.”

The application's ability to make available a more relevant selection of words than traditional predictive systems, and do so more rapidly, could lead to speed increases of up to 50 per cent, the company claimed.

Available in five languages at launch – English, Spanish, German, Dutch and Swedish – the app will be able to “learn” the typing style of each user by analysing the word associations most commonly used and prioritising words based around those patterns.

“We've analysed over 50 billion words in nine major languages to build the models that drive our prediction engine,” Ben Medlock, TouchType's chief technical officer (CTO), added.

SwiftKey is free to download in beta form for all versions of Android.

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