The SwiftKey 4 touchscreen Android keyboard brings high quality upgrades, such as stellar prediction engine, a wider assortment of languages, and SwiftKey Flow, amazingly Swype-like.

It is normally $3.99 in the Google Play store, but is currently being offered for $1.99 for a limited time. A Cnet reviewer has gone so far to say it is the best Android keyboard he's ever used. Should you splurge on the $3.99 keyboard, or is it too much?

Last October, SwiftKey announced the addition of of SwiftKey Flow. This allows the user to swipe from letter to letter to enter text without ever having to take their finger off the screen. When this announcement was made, it was said Flow would be offered as a separate download but the company realized it would be a more competitive keyboard app if Flow were included right out of the box.

What's All the Fuss About?

Well, that's really quite simple. Its predictive capabilities include not only recognizing words you use often and suggesting them, but how the words you are typing flow together in a coherent sentence.

Because of this, you will note SwiftKey sometimes suggests just the word you were planning to type before you've even typed a single letter. The more you use it, the smarter and more accurate predictions become. It will even learn from your emails, social media sites, and even text messages words you commonly use.

Smart Space is another handy feature of SwiftKey. If it appears you've left out spaces or put them in the wrong place, it will tell you so. Just start typing, and Smart Space does the job of cleaning up the mess for you, entering spaces where they should go in an eerily accurate fashion.

Focus on Flow

Flow is nothing new. Many have fallen in love with gesture-based Swype when it first hit the market years ago. Flow basically allows you to input text by dragging your finger from letter to letter, even including the space bar, ending the incessant tapping motions which result in multiple errors from touching wrong letters by accident. Reviewers found this method of inputting text led to lightening fast input speeds, a nice surprise.

If you sometimes switch without thinking into the old-style tap input method, SwiftKey doesn't even notice. Switch back and forth between sliding your finger or tapping with ease. While using Flow, predictions are just as accurate.

If the word predicted matches what you are going to type, stop sliding your finger around and remove it from the screen. Watch as the word is automatically input without even tapping the screen. If it's highlighted when you lift your finger, the app does all the work for you. It takes some getting used to, but after some practice, the payoff is amazingly fast text input.

Additional Features and Information

Check out the settings menu for handy tutorials, layouts, and prediction settings. You'll also see a stats section, where SwiftKey calculates how many keystrokes the app has performed for you without you having to do it yourself, as well as how many times it has fixed your spelling blunders. The “heat map” shows you how accurate of a typist you are and what keys you struggle to hit most often.

SwiftKey was chosen as a Google Play Editors' Choice app and was also the winner of the Most Innovative App award at the Global Mobile Awards in Barcelona, Spain. Pick the app up for a limited time for $1.99, regularly $3.99.