Image discovery website Pinterest Inc. announced on June 15 that it has acquired the company behind the renowned smart keyboard app dubbed Fleksy.
For the uninitiated, Fleksy's keyboard app makes use of a predictive technology designed to enhance typing on touch screens.
The Wall Street Journal reports, though, that Fleksy's technology is not bought by the company and that the app will keep on running at the moment. Rather, roughly half of Fleksy's staff will be joining Pinterest. The list includes the company's founder and Chief Executive Officer Kosta Eleftheriou.
With regard to the specifics of the deal, details are scarce at the moment.
Stand-Alone iOS App
Fleksy's iOS app was first rolled out on Apple's App Store as a stand-alone helpful app for blind users.
The app was eventually pushed out to a wider audience, as it was also released on Android devices, enabling users of both iOS and Android operating systems to enhance their speed of typing and allowing them to personalize their keyboard.
To date, the Fleksy app has already been downloaded 12 million times. It is said that the app's accessibility components that are deemed useful to the visually impaired users will also be open-sourced soon. It is also worth mentioning that this app is not alone in the market, as the technology has been rivaled by Swype and SwiftKey as customers' top choice.
Catalog Of Ideas
Pinterest is hoping that the Fleksy team can aid in building its visual search engine, which it calls "catalog of ideas," through the latter's knowledge in mobile engineering.
"Pinterest is intensely focused on refining the mobile experiences that make it possible to flow effortlessly through our catalog of ideas — on any device, any place in the world," said the Head of Core Experience at Pinterest, Scott Goodson, as shared by Droid Life. "The Fleksy team is made up of truly noteworthy engineers and world experts in their areas. These technical artists have a history of developing architecturally innovative, highly optimized software."
In the meantime, Eleftheriou seems excited to join Pinterest's team. He said the Fleksy's team will keep on working on so-called intuitive content-discovery experiences on mobile devices. He went on to say that the company will be bringing its expertise on both Android and iOS to Pinterest in order to come up with efficient tools in helping people uncover more ideas.
A report from Digital Trends says that it seems like Pinterest "wants to expand its search and recommendation offerings a little."
In related Pinterest news, Tech Times reported in April that the company expanded its Promoted Pins feature to the United Kingdom after the functionality was initially rolled out in the United States in 2015.
Photo: Mike Mozart | Flickr
