It appears SwiftKey missed April 1 by a few days, as today the company has uploaded a new keyboard app with a difference: instead of using SwiftKey's predictive talents to figure out what your next word will be, it uses none other than William Shakespeare's own words. That's right, England's most famous playwright powers the 'KeyBard,' or rather his words do.

If you start typing a famous Shakespeare quote, such as, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet," or, "Now is the winter of our discontent," the app will try and fill them in and complete the sentence. It doesn't always manage it, but it gets pretty close most of the time. Otherwise, the app will predict words that make sentences long, hard to understand, and generally quite Shakespearean. SwiftKey's top language experts analyzed many of Shakespeare's plays, such as MacBeth, Romeo & Juliet, Twelfth Night, and The Tempest, to come with the language model, which like the normal SwiftKey keyboard, learns as you type.

SwiftKeys says users should start 'thou, thee, and thy-ing' to get in with the Shakespeare lingo, and recommends that sentences should be started with "O!" or "What ho!" for an 'authentic Shakespeare feel.' The app was developed by SwiftKey Greenhouse, SwiftKey's ideas lab, to coincide with the anniversary of the bard's death 400 years ago.

The app is available to download now on the Play Store. SwiftKey is encouraging users to share their best Shakespearean phrases on Twitter, using the hashtag #ShakeSpeak.

Source: SwiftKey blog