After spending several years in beta testing, the popular Swype keyboard made its official debut on Android earlier this week, and at the moment it’s only available on a small number of platforms. But there’s a chance that we could see Swype’s typing technology on iOS in the future.
Swype vice president Aaron Sheedy has confirmed that his company has held talks with Apple, sparking speculation that suggests the pair are working together to develop a “revolutionary” new keyboard — possibly for Apple’s upcoming iOS 7 update.
Sheedy confirmed the talks during an AMA or “ask me anything” thread on Reddit, which was spotted by iFans. “I was curious as to whether you’ve ever had any contact with Apple,” said one Redditor. “Any conversations to see if they might have been interested in licensing your technology?”
Sheedy replied: “Hah. The million (ok billion) $ questions. Yes, we have chatted with them, they are very smart and nice.”
This doesn’t confirm anything, of course, and Sheedy obviously didn’t want to reveal any of the juicy details. But it certainly sounds like the talks went well, which is very exciting news for iOS users.
Apple doesn’t just invite people in for coffee to ask how they’ve been — especially not when those people develop exclusively for a rival platform — so this certainly suggests that something very interesting could be on the cards. It also indicates that Apple has been looking to improve its virtual keyboards for iOS devices.
Could it be that the company has teamed up with Swype to deliver a new keyboard in iOS 7? Possibly. That would certainly explain why it took Swype for Android so long to exit beta and be made available officially through Google Play. But maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
For now we’ll have to wait and see what, if anything, those talks will bring.
Source: Reddit
Via: iFans
