One of the reasons I don't swipe on my smartphone's keyboard very often is that I can never be too sure what the prediction engine will insert especially when the word is too short or the letters and swipe motion are very similar to another word. "To" and "too," "art" and "at," "deal" and "desk," are some of many examples where moving your finger a few millimeters and pausing on a letter for a few milliseconds can make all the difference between a quick message and lost seconds spent tapping backspace and retrying to type the correct word.

SwiftKey is trying a new swipe approach with its latest beta version. Instead of the app automatically inserting the word after you "flow" (i.e. swipe), it will give you three predictions, just like it does when you're hunting and pecking at the letters. If the main middle prediction isn't the one you want, you can choose one of the other two and continue your text. But if you simply continue flowing or tapping without selecting anything, the app will automatically insert the middle prediction.

I haven't tested it yet (I find SwiftKey irritatingly slow and somehow inaccurate with my finger taps compared to GBoard), but it seems like a great idea. Speed shouldn't be affected for those who flow without a single edit, but those who often see the wrong word inserted will have more flexibility.

The option should be live in the latest SwiftKey Beta v6.5.5.20 which you can grab from the Play Store or APK Mirror.

Source: SwiftKey