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Screenshot by Lance Whitney/CNET
iPhone and iPad users who like Swype’s iOS keyboard will find even more to tap into in the latest version of the app.
Swype is one of several third-party keyboards that have cropped up since Apple opened up support for them in iOS 8. Though Apple’s built-in keyboard offers predictive typing and other handy features, some of the third-party keyboards add even more functionality, such as gesture-based typing. Swype is among them.
Released Tuesday, version 1.1 of Swype adds a number of features and tweaks for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch users. You can now choose among 21 languages, including 16 new ones available for download.
Those of you who like to pepper your emails and messages with emojis will find support for the tiny icons in US English, UK English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. Even further, the emoji feature is predictive, meaning it tries to suggest the right emoji to enter based on the text you type. So if you write “I’m happy,” the feature may suggest a smiling emoji. If you write “I’m angry,” the feature will suggest a more sour-pussed icon.
The app — owned by Nunace — adds new keyboard layouts so that it now supports QWERTZ and AZERTY in addition to the traditional QWERTY style.
Those of you who like to hear a sound when you press a key can keep the “Sound on keypress” option enabled. Rather have a silent keyboard? You can easily turn the option off. Another option automatically adds a space when you end a sentence by pressing the space bar twice.
Finally, all of Swype’s built-in themes are now available for the iPad. So tablet users can chose from among Dark, Light, Earth, Sand, and Sun to give a different look and feel to the keyboard.f
The app costs $1 in Apple’s App Store. Other third-party keyboards for iOS 8 include SwiftKey, Fleksy and Ginger Keyboard.
