One of the first alternative keyboards for Android, Swype, has been discontinued without much fanfare.
Swype was the first alternative keyboard to allow people to swipe rather than type out words letter by letter. It was owned by Nuance which quietly released notice of the discontinuation of the app.
A Reddit user, dancedar, said he had emailed Nuance regarding support for Swype 2.8 which was crashing on his Pixel phone after a reboot and received the following as part of the reply:
"However, we are sad to announce that Swype+Dragon for Android has faced end of development. Here is a statement from Swype Product Team:
{loadposition sam08}"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."
The iOS version of Skype will also be discontinued.
Nuance said: "After years of leadership in the third-party keyboard and alternative text input space, Nuance made the difficult decision to discontinue our support of the Swype keyboard application as we continue to focus our efforts on AI-powered solutions for our core vertical markets.
"This means that the app is no longer available for new downloads from the iPhone or Android App Stores and that we are no longer maintaining or making updates to the app.
"However, current users still have the ability to access and use the app as normal and will be able to contact Nuance for tech support as needed for the next several months.
"The core technology behind Swype will continue to be utilised and improved upon across other Nuance offerings – and integrated into our broader AI-powered solutions – most notably in Android-based keyboard solutions for our automotive customers."