SwiftKey, makers of the popular third-party keyboard, has unveiled a new keyboard app that allows users to focus more on what they are writing.
Currently, the popular SwiftKey keyboard learns from user's typing patterns to suggest words they can easily tap instead of typing out the entire word. The new keyboard, called Clarity, uses the same predictive learning technology found in SwiftKey. However, instead of making suggestions that users can choose or ignore, Clarity makes automatic corrections after the words have been typed based on what the app has learned.
Auto-correct is not a new thing and is present in virtually every keyboard app for Android and iOS. However, most auto-correct features only correct words that the app thinks might have been misspelled by the user. Clarity, on the other hand, learns the most common words, names, phrases, and slangs that people use when they are typing and automatically corrects the text based on how people use these words.
Another key differentiator of Clarity from other keyboards with auto-correct is the ability to reject auto-corrections right away. Too many people have been spurned by auto-correct turning their messages into something embarrassing or inappropriate. Clarity addresses this issue by allowing users to restore their previously typed words simply by tapping the backspace key, and this could very well make it one of the more popular third-party keyboards out there.
However, SwiftKey emphasizes that Clarity is still in beta version. Right now, users can download the experimental app from the Google Play Store, but they shouldn't be surprised if they encounter bugs and problems of any sort. In fact, some people have already mentioned a few technical issues, which are expected. Samsung users, in particular, might be miffed to find out that Clarity does not currently support Samsung but is working on a fix for that. Others have complimented SwiftKey for its simplicity and user-friendliness of the new keyboard, considering it's still in beta.
As an experimental project, Clarity still does not have the bells and whistles found in SwiftKey, such as swipe-typing with SwiftKey Flow. However, there are a few nice features already included, such as being able to swipe from the shift key to a letter to capitalize that letter. For now, Clarity remains part of SwiftKey's Greenhouse division, which tests new projects with beta volunteers before releasing them to the public.
"We're releasing Clarity Keyboard as an experiment to gather your feedback and to test some ideas we have about different ways people type," says SwiftKey on the Clarity page. "We believe in fresh thinking, building new things and asking our users to test them."
