iSwipe Brings Swype To iPhone – Jailbreak

Jul. 12 Applications, iPhone / iPad / iOS, Jaibreak iOS 8 comments
By Troy D. Brown

I have been undecided if I truly like the Swype method of typing on Android. While it seems to work the majority of time I still feel I can type faster on the soft keyboard versus dragging my finger across the screen.

My interest in the Swype method has been renewed with a recent addition to the iOS jailbreak community of iSwipe. Andrew Liu has released a very early version of a Swype type of keyboard for iOS devices. I have been using it since version 0.1.0 and Andrew has pushed out some amazing updates in the last few days. iSwipe now sits at version 0.3.0 and is coming together nicely.

You must be jailbroken to install iSwipe, if you need info on jailbreaking follow this link. To install iSwipe you will need to add http://wynd.x10.mx/repo to your Cydia sources.

Keep in mind that iSwipe is a work in progress right now and you should only install it if you want to play around as it is not ready daily use just yet. After you install the package you can simply start swiping on your keyboard.

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  • phil

    Thanks for the update. Installed ver 0.1.0 a while ago and whilst it’s not perfect it an awesome apps. When I tried to install this version 0.3.0 I encountered the following error msg.
    i subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
    ii NetDB Open nodename nor servname provided, or not known

    can you help ?

    Thanks

  • phil

    edit
    second error msg is
    ii sub-process/usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

  • Troy D. Brown

    I will see what I can out for you in the AM, what iOS are you using 4.3.3?

  • phil

    yes its iphone 4 4.33 jb
    thanks

  • Scott Leibrand

    Great idea! I installed and tried it out, but unfortunately for me the current version is still way less efficient than the iPhone’s built in keyboard. The fact I can only use one thumb/finger to type slows things way down for me. Perhaps recognizing two-finger swipes would help? iSwipe is also significantly less accurate for me than two-thumb typing, which slows things down further. It just occurred to me that I should try it with my pointer finger instead of my thumb, which helps a bit, although it is still quite buggy.

    It seems that most of the bugs have to do with between word spacing: if I swipe two words in a row without having to make any corrections, it spaces them ok. But if I have to type a one-letter word, I need to manually add spaces before and after it. And if I have to correct a word with the alternate suggestion bar (like the repeated default of “too” when I want “to”) and then swipe another word, it will sometimes actually delete the last letter of the previous word, leaving “t” instead of “to”. The other thing it needs is to change the behavior of the X on the alternate suggestion bar: instead of just a close button, it should actually delete the last word and make it easy to try again without a lot of backspacing.

    Another must-have feature is the ability to enable and disable iSwipe so you can go back to typing normally if needed without it interpreting every slip of the thumb as a gesture. At the moment, I’m having to uninstall and reinstall it whenever I want to play with it.

    And finally, it’d be nice if it integrated better with iOS’s existing autocorrection. For example, I’ve noticed that a number of the autocorrections that make the iPhone keyboard tolerable (to add apostrophes for example) don’t work with swiped words.

    Perhaps with those bugs fixed, the production version will be something I can train myself to use more efficiently than the built in keyboard. But for now I’m going to have to uninstall it. Looking forward to trying beta 4!

  • Dust

    How do u uninstall it if I wanted to ?

  • Troy D. Brown

    Open Cydia, go to Manage at the bottom, Choose Packages, scroll down to iSwipe and tap it. Tap modify and remove.

  • Tom

    I’d love to be a beta tester for this application, currently I alternate between ShapeWriter and Iswipe. But, I’m a disabled male. And this app, and ShapeWriter has returned so much functionality to my life. I am really feeling the need to give back. ShapeWriter has a perfected app, it just needs to fit the iPad screen a little better. But this app can get better, and I’d be honored to help because I know there’s a whole disabled community that can benefit from this technology.

    Currently on OS 4.2.1. JB with Redsn0w Iswipe ver 0.4.0