After numerous reports that the Swype app was making OCD-level location requests on some users' devices, the company updated the popular 3rd party keyboard to, well, not do that. At least one user claimed the app requested his location nearly 4000 times in a single day, which obviously has some rather unfortunate implications for battery life.
While some users have tried to turn this into a privacy issue (come on guys, it's a keyboard app), more than anything it just seems like a potentially battery-killing bug that needed squashing. And squashed it has been: Swype released an update to version 1.6.16 today that should eliminate the bug and reduce the number of location requests dramatically for users who were experiencing it. It also does numerous other things.
May 14-v.1.6.16
Improved user adaptation and word completion for tapped words
Strengthened syncing logic surrounding Backup & Sync to reduce data usage
Reduced the number of location notifications Swype receives from the Android OS
New keyboard languages, Burmese & Khmer
Performance improvements
Fixed a conflict with Android spell checker
Fixed issues with UI rendering in Android KitKat
Fixed crashes reported by users
Various bug fixes and optimizations
You can check out a detailed changelog here and hit up the Play Store now to get the update.