
Microsoft Is Acquiring London’s AI-Driven Swiftkey for $250M - rahulshiv
http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/02/microsoft-is-acquiring-londons-ai-driven-swiftkey-for-250m/
======
rcpt
Hitting the middle button on SwiftKey "neural alpha" repeatedly:

I have a few questions for you to see if you can get me a copy of the letter
to the office and I will be in touch with you to discuss the position with you
and your family are doing well and that you are not the only one I have to say
that I am a beautiful person and I love you and I love you and I love you and
I love you and I love you and I love you and I love you and I love you and I
love you and I love you and I love you and I love you and I love you and I
love you and I love you and I love you

~~~
xeromal
This is from my swiftkey.

I am a very good to see you guys and meet Steph said she needs to find her
copy of Banjo Kazooie the same spending power of the beach and will be working
with JavaScript as well as the anticipated time and additional fees involved
in the future and to see our contact information please click here to help you
with your app and activate Inbox by Gmail on that account I deploy to the repo
if you want to take open source tools to handle it though I have a
digitalocean account I deploy to the repo if you want to take open source
tools to handle it though I have a digitalocean account I deploy to the repo
if you want to take open source tools to handle it

My girlfriends.

I am trying to get a chance to win the game is at the cough and I will be
assisting them in developing an online patient care system where doctors will
have a secure system to access patient files outside of the office and I don't
know if you need any more information on the landing page and the other hand I
am not only hardworking but ready and excited to learn about the cosmetic
chemistry field of study of the month of the month of the month of the month
of

~~~
joshschreuder
How often are you talking about Banjo Kazooie?

~~~
artmageddon
I'd assume a good amount if Steph can't find her copy of it ;)

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melbourne_mat
It's a good acquisition in that it's a great product used by many people.

I can't help thinking about the privacy angle - Microsoft gets to capture
everything you type into your Android keyboard.

And yes I wear my tinfoil hat often.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Last time I checked, SwiftKey had an explicit option to cloud sync your data,
or keep it device-only. I am not sure if any newer versions of SwiftKey have
removed it, but that's always been a specific choice I've made on SwiftKey
installs.

~~~
bonoboTP
Since it is a proprietary software, did you reverse engineer it to see if it
really does what you think?

Or have you used some packet sniffer, like Wireshark and analyzed the network
traffic extensively?

Unless you do those things, you're still at their mercy. Not that it matters
too much, since Google already has access to anything you do on your Android
phone, and I don't think Microsoft is "worse" than them...

~~~
kalleboo
On iOS the OS limits network access to keyboards unless you explicitly approve
it.

Of course on Android, Google refuse to do anything about privacy controls.

~~~
soylentcola
Really? I've got quite a few permissions that I can allow or deny on a per-app
basis. Admittedly, "network access" is not included in the default list which
I assume is a way to keep people from breaking app functionality (for better
or worse) but there are several third party apps that let you toggle network
access permissions. Not quite as nice as something built in but if you're the
type to go into settings and modify app permissions, you're probably also the
the type who doesn't mind grabbing an app from the Play Store to do the same.

------
cant_kant
The Financial Times says:

"Nonetheless, one person close to the company said the sale price was lower
than investors might have hoped for a couple of years ago, when Swiftkey was
among the most popular smartphone apps in the world."

It is an unfortunately timed exit.

If they had sold even a year ago, they could have done much better.

------
TheRealWatson
Awesome exit for them but, darn it, there goes another great app. Destined to
become a shadow of its former self.

~~~
outworlder
Yeah, another entry for ourincrediblejourney.

~~~
jonesb6
Wow that was my first time looking at
[http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/](http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/)
. Is their some template you fill out for your blog whenever you get
acquired?? Seriously: copy, past, repeat.

~~~
derefr
I would guess that startup founders have no idea what to say upon getting
acquired, so they google around to see what other startups have said.

~~~
mrkurt
Accurate. I would bet most aren't even written by the startup founders
themselves.

~~~
tempestn
I would definitely take that bet. Startup founders for the most part, even
ones accepting 9-figure acquisitions, don't tend to have people ghost-writing
their blog posts. (Dedicated writers on their team maybe, but not authoring
blog posts with the founders' by-line.) I agree with your parent though.

------
fillskills
Is it just me that I find Microsoft implementation of swype typing better than
swiftkey on iOS (I haven't used Android). I hope they are using the buyout for
swiftkeys spread on android and iOS, or to get more information about what
users are searching/typing. And I hope we can see the AI on Windows 10 swype
feature percolate into swiftkey products.

------
tdkl
There is no other keyboard out there which can predict multiple languages
without clumsy language switching.

Fuck, now all the data will be mined by Microsoft. Another great product
FUBARed, just like Sunrise.

------
fencepost
As a person who has and uses (lightly) a Windows Mobile phone running the
Windows 10 beta, I'd love to see it become a/the keyboard option on there. The
native keyboard isn't terrible once you learn some of the things it can do,
but it still pales in comparison to SwiftKey, and I don't even make full use
of the predictive buttons because I'm so used to sweeping.

I'll note that in the search / address bar of Firefox, if I type "ne" the
three options it predicts are "ne", "news.ycombinator.com", and
"news.google.com", where the same entry in a text field gives more expected
values.

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ionised
I've honestly found my SwiftKey experience getting significantly worse over
time to the point where I'm ready to drop it entirely.

The predictions/autocompletes just seem completely batshit crazy compared to
when I first started using it.

Although if Microsoft are the new owners of the software then I'm definitely
going to drop it anyway.

~~~
aembleton
Why would you leave just because Microsoft bought it?

I really like their Android launcher - Arrow:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.launcher&hl=en_GB)
and so I'm confident that they can make a good go at it.

~~~
ionised
I've been really turned off by the way they have behaved lately, in particular
the way they handled the push for people to adopt Windows 10. I upgraded
myself (I'm a gamer, so basically just for DX12).

1) Autodownloading it to people's machines ignoring any user choice not to do
so.

2) Auto-starting the the install/upgrade process without any input from the
user.

3) Making user-hidden Windows 10 (and Windows 7/8 telemetry) updates available
again, over and over.

4) Resetting privacy settings after Windows 10 updates

5) Refusing to clarify what is actually in Windows 10 updates,

6) And just flat out refusing to allow their users to turn off the telemetry
and advertising in Windows Store apps altogether.

Every once in a while Microsoft seems to start behaving themselves and
improving on their old, shitty image. Then stuff like this happens, where
'honest mistakes' that just happen to be _very_ much in their interests occur
over and over again in a short space of time over the course of the initial
adoption of their new software.

I get that they stand to make a _lot_ of money having as many people as
possible on their new platform but when it comes at the cost of ignoring user
choice, siphoning off their data and just not telling them what updates are
doing to their systems then it's time to call bullshit.

They're completely full of it and they haven't changed at all.

I'm 100% convinced SwiftKey will become the next tool in their new user data-
based business model, so I won't use it anymore. Just like I stopped using
WhatsApp when Facebook acquired it.

------
ocdtrekkie
Wow. People don't talk about it too much in the same breath as all of the new
trendy AI stuff, but Swiftkey has been doing incredibly smart input work for
years, and is probably the most actually-useful AI app available for Android.
I think I had it since it's earliest days, like 2009 or 2010?

~~~
ilyaeck
In what way is it better/different, compared to the default Google keyboard
(which is not too bad, either)?

~~~
cissou
It's hard to tell exactly without knowing what's going on under the hood, but
what has significantly got better in recent months for me is:

\- Individualized predictions (it clearly picks up things I often write,
including slang and abbreviations)

\- Multi-words predictions ("What time" completed by "is it" instead of "is",
"it")

\- Context dependent predictions: predicts email addresses when I'm in the
"To" field of an email, predicts an URL when I'm in the browser's omnibox,
etc.

\- Multi language support (I can mix English and French in my texts... Happens
all the time)

~~~
kuschku
> \- Context dependent predictions

Actually, that’s not a feature of the IME/Keyboard.

The dev of the app has to set textUri, or textEmail, or textShortMessage on
each field.

Here’s a list of all contexts possible:
[http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/TextVi...](http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/TextView.html#attr_android:inputType)

~~~
srtjstjsj
The app provides the context id, SK provides the predictions, using context-
specific models.

~~~
kuschku
Yes, but that’s not much of a feature. You don’t have to detect anything, you
can just use a different prediction model for each context, and train each
separately.

------
derFunk
I'm using SwiftKey constantly for normal typing, and it's got a great
autocorrect feature. Not using the AI (word suggestion/prediction) at all. Yet
it drives me regularly insane, especially when typing technical terms,
abbreviations and http addresses, because it just refuses to accept that there
sometimes just has to be NO space after a dot. Also writing uppercase seems to
be a hard task for SwiftKey. I'd like them to enhance the AI this way: if
SwiftKey recognizes permanent violations of their built in rules, just ask the
user if he wants SwiftKey to ignore certain rules. I assume something can be
configured, but I didn't even bother searching for it (because lazy and afraid
to get lost in the huge settings menu).

~~~
soft_dev_person
Correctly configured/tagged text input fields usually don't have these issues
(Android) and makes SwiftKey behave correctly.

But in Chrome (for example), the address bar is not only for URLs, so your
mileage may vary.

------
cwyers
This is frustrating, Microsoft announced that they were going to port the
excellent Windows Phone keyboard to iOS and I was hoping it would come to
Android too.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Windows Phone's predictions was nothing much, though. SwiftKey is capable of
supporting multiple keyboard layouts, their magic is that prediction software.
It's entirely possible/likely that Microsoft will take their layout that
people like, and offer it with SwiftKey as the predictive text feature
attached to it.

~~~
TheAnimus
I find the windows phone keyboard suggestions much better than any other I've
used. Despite now having an iPhone 6s from work I still use a WP as my daily
go to because it's much better at writing a whatsapp or email message, even if
the 'other' apps suck.

I'm also heavily dyslexic, so I might be an outliar.

------
ethanpil
IMHO, the stock keyboard on Surface devices is barely functional. It looks
nice but lacks a lot of features that I am used to from my (non Microsoft)
mobile devices. I am hoping this acquisition is a move to improve that
technology.

------
reitanqild
For me Swiftkey was a favourite until it broke in so many subtle and not so
subtle ways: insisting on changing i to I (i is the local word for in so
incredibly frustrating), other times it will split combined words making me
look like an English-speaking or worse, local teenager. No amount of tweaking,
correcting, updating or even filing bugs seems to work.

So now I use the default keyboard.

~~~
soft_dev_person
Just uncheck Autocorrect. Makes it so much more useful (for Scandinavian
languages and multi-language modes), even though it requires a bit more mental
presence when typing.

------
cooper12
> Here’s how SwiftKey works:

That video was not the explanation I was hoping for, but a voiceover ad...

------
jinst8gmi
I wonder if this is going to have implications for Swiftkey's privacy policy
and data mining etc. if Windows 10 is anything to go by...

------
bronlund
Okey. I'm trying Fleksy then.

------
Gabriel_h
Congratulations to the team at SwiftKey!

I know there's a high concentration of awesome engineering talent there. So I
wonder whether this acquisition is primarily for the talent or for the
potential monetisation opportunities?

------
philliphaydon
Ahhh I can't stand swift key. Windows flo or what ever it is kills this
already. Swift key doesn't learn and consistently suggests wrong words even
after 2 years of use.

Personal opinion.

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singularity2001
Sad that after all those years Apple/iOS still doesn't have a keyboard with
swypeing and voice input combined, or did I miss anything?

~~~
k-mcgrady
...SwiftKey. It's available on iOS as are many other third party keyboards
although admittedly the integration isn't great. As for voice input iOS has
had that in the built-in keyboard for 3 or 4 years.

~~~
jeffbax
Yeah, but all iOS Keyboards have serious stability problems. I'm sure that
it's Apple's API's fault first, and hope that MS's resources help iron things
out, but its really frustrating.

Integrating Cortana into the keyboard could be interesting though, would like
to give it a spin if more convenient than it is today in comparison to Siri.

~~~
k-mcgrady
You're right the integration of third party keyboards is awful. I spend more
time trying to get the right keyboard to show that actually using the thing.

------
melted
Absolutely ridiculous price for something most people don't even know about.

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soroso
Just uninstalled it.

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guelo
If you have the app installed I would suggest turning off auto-update from the
store so that you can keep the keyboard as-is before Microsoft starts meddling
with it.

~~~
what_ever
Eh. Microsoft hasn't really messed up the previous Android apps they have
bought. I feel people have more issues with all data going to Microsoft now.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
They've made it clear they want to be a viable presence on Android. Ruining an
app like SwiftKey isn't in their best interest. But hating on Microsoft is
still popular for some people.

~~~
guelo
Yea I'm an irrational "hater". I'll just leave this here
[http://appadvice.com/appnn/2015/10/microsoft-announces-
plans...](http://appadvice.com/appnn/2015/10/microsoft-announces-plans-to-
discontinue-the-popular-sunrise-calendar-app)

You never know what these giant companies will do. But whatever, it was just a
suggestion. I don't care if you install the new Microsoft Swiftkey updates.

~~~
oldmanjay
That's not really evidence of your rationality, if that's what you were hoping
to prove.

