Six months ago, it seemed that the Microsoft SwiftKey keyboard for iPhone and iPad was dead. It seemed that way because Microsoft said the app was dead and went so far as to remove it from the App Store.
The following month, without much explanation, the keyboard was re-listed for sale on the App Store, with Microsoft executives hinting (without being specific) that there were plans to develop it further. A month after that, SwiftKey received its first “bug fixes and performance improvements “template update since August 2022.
SwiftKey for iOS received a major feature update yesterday – and as we’re talking about a Microsoft product in 2023, the update includes the AI-powered Bing chatbot that (along with other AI features) has quickly made its way into Windows, Edge, Skype, and other apps over the past few months.
Press the increasingly familiar blue lowercase “b”on your keyboard and you’ll be able to interact with the Bing chatbot in three different modes. “Search”is for getting quick answers to search queries, “Tone”promises to customize your writing style “to make your words sound more professional, casual, polite, or concise”, and “Chat”is the standard Bing Chat interface.
Initially, the Bing chatbot made headlines both for its novelty and for the sometimes weird, sometimes wrong, sometimes threatening responses it generated in response to certain questions. Microsoft has since made some changes, introducing different “personalities”to control chatbot responses and imposing limits on the number of follow-up requests you can make in a single chat instance.
Moving beyond Bing’s AI-based features, Microsoft is also working on integrating generative AI into what used to be called the Office suite. Microsoft Copilot helps you write emails and documents, create PowerPoint presentations, and make plans and actions from meeting minutes. Bing Chat is powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which announced a “multi-year, multi-billion dollar investment”from Microsoft earlier this year.
Microsoft originally bought SwiftKey and its keyboard for $250 million back in 2016. The Android version, which today also supports Bing Chat features, has never been discontinued or removed from Google Play.