SwiftKey Beta adds new slide out settings menu straight from the keyboard, throws logo on space bar for kicks
Keyboard competition in Android is fierce. With so many virtual keyboards options out there looking to become your default, SwiftKey has long been the keyboard we trust to handle our erratic screen taps. It was nearly a year ago, SwiftKey went full-on free in the Google Play Store, offering up instead paid themes users could download to change up the look of the keyboard. It was a great move to be sure and — despite having already paid for the app years before that — one we had no problem getting behind.
But new changes headed to SwiftKey are leaving us feeling… well, not quite as enthusiastic. As detailed on their blog, the keyboard replacement is now adding “SwiftKey Hub,” their all new slide-out settings menu that essentially replaces the previous settings interface by making it available straight from the keyboard itself.
It’s broken up into 3 man tabs: Personalize (stats, support, SwiftKey Cloud login), SwiftKey store (themes), and Settings Menu (resize keyboard, advanced settings, etc.). We also noticed the SwiftKey logo appearing on the space bar. Ew.
SwiftKey also briefly talked about Dashlane integration for the secure storage of passwords. Dashlane uses AES-256 encryption and works with SwiftKey (Beta-only for now) to auto-insert passwords. Since all your passwords are store in Dashlane, you wont have to worry about SwiftKey having access to them. But in order for everything to work, you’ll need to also have the Dashlane Android app installed.
We’re not entirely sure if adding a slide-out settings menu makes the most sense for a keyboard, but SwiftKey says additional features will arrive at some point in the future. In the meantime, you can grab the latest beta here to try out the new settings interface for yourself, or simply wait until it goes live in the Google Play Store after it’s been tested for a bit.