SlideIT Keyboard

by Antonio Wells Jun 7, 2010 5:38 PM – 26 Comments

Install

SlideIT Keyboard is a revolutionary way to enter text easily faster and much more fun. Just Slide along the letters with your finger,and words “magically” appear. To activate the keyboard: Open Settings » Locale & Text » Select SlideIT Keyboard. Then Long press on any text box » Click Input Method » Select SlideIT.

Price: Free, ~$3.79

AndroidTapp.com Android App Review:

Pros & Cons:

Pros

Genius new way to quickly input text on virtual keyboards by sliding to letters
Fast, accurate and easy to learn
Manual learning library where you can add words to the dictionary
Supports many language dictionaries

Cons

New text input learning experience
Periodic nagging reminder in the free demo version to buy the full version
Has a “Graffiti” hand writing recognition feature but it’s useless and needs a lot of work with accuracy and allowing you to lift your figure for some characters
No Speech-to-Text for Android 2.1+ devices

Features:

SlideIT Keyboard is a virtual keyboard for Android and has a cool and unique way to type on touch screen phones. You slide to letters versus taping individual keys (however does support tapping individual keys). Compared to the default keyboard, SlideIT Keyboard is lightning fast and pretty accurate too.

SlideIT vs Swype Comparison Chart:

After being spoiled by slide-input virtual keyboards on touch screen phones I personally don’t think I can go back. The below chart compares SlideIT Keyboard to Swype Keyboard highlighting small nuances that makes slide-input typing convenient.

Feature	SlideIt	Swype
Word Correction	No	Yes, double tap word for context menu of assumed corrections
Learning Library	Yes, manual. Type word and press + symbol	Yes, both manual and automatic
Accuracy	Very accurate most of the time	Most accurate of two, can completely miss a letter or two and it assumes the correct letter
Speed	Dramatic speed increase over default Android keyboard	Dramatic speed increase over default Android keyboard
Double letters	Predicts and presents single and double letters for you to choose from: i.e. “ten” and “teen”	For double letters like “teen” swivel a little circle on the “e”. This will help avoid typing “ten”. The great thing is that the circle you create does not have to be perfect.
Incorporates Default Android 2.1+ Speech-to-Text	No	No
Price & Availability	Free Demo, €5.99 for Pro. Both in the Android Market	Free. Embedded in some Android phones at manufacturer or carrier level. Few lucky users received the public beta. Not available in the Android Market.

Video: SlideIT Keybpard

Watch on Mobile

: SlideIT Keyboard

: SlideIT Keyboard Writing 1

: SlideIT Keyboard Writing 2

: SlideIT Keyboard Numbers

: SlideIT Keyboard Graffiti

: SlideIT Keyboard Options Menu

: SlideIT Keyboard in Landscape Mode

Usefulness:

Virtual touch screen keyboards are difficult to master, SlideIT Keyboard takes this common problem and offers a faster, easier and more accurate solution than tapping every letter.

Android Advice™: How do I change my virtual keyboard?

Open Settings » Language & keyboard » Select SlideIT Keyboard.
Long press on any text box » Click Input Method » Select SlideIT Keyboard.

Frequently Used:

If used it will be used every time you input text on the virtual keyboard.

AndroidTapp.com Rating

AndroidTapp.com Rating! (4.4 out of 5)

Should you Download SlideIT Keyboard? Yes! Definitely Worth Buying!

Developer: Dasur

Tags: Android App, Android Apps, Android Keyboard, AndroidTapp.com App Review, On-Screen Keyboard, SlideIT Keyboard, Virtual Keyboard

Categorised in: Tools

26 Comments

By Gil Borg on June 8, 2010 at 6:24 am:

The best app I found so far this year is SlideIT. Absolute genius and works really well.
I’ve had it installed for 2 weeks now, and I love it.

Reply
- By Chris on November 4, 2010 at 2:42 am:
  
  Please give some advice. I can’t get it working. The old keyboard just keeps coming up no matter what I do. Thanks
  
  Reply
  - By Antonio Wells on November 4, 2010 at 1:07 pm:
    
    Have you enabled the keyboard then switched from default keyboard to SlideIt? See instructions in the review.
    
    Reply
    - By Chris on November 5, 2010 at 12:00 am:
      
      I went to the applications, selected SlideIt, activated it, That takes me to the language and keyboard section. The slideIt keyboard is ticked . It gives the box that tells me about the input method collecting data(that is a bit scary) but I OK on that. My keyboard just doesn’t change. Is there something else I have to do?
      Thanks
      
      Reply
      - By Chris on November 5, 2010 at 6:34 pm:
        
        Hi
        I finally got it working. Now to practice. on first go it seems good. Thanks for your help. I wasn’t choosing it in the input box once at the keyboard
By Tim Loongoeter on June 9, 2010 at 1:43 am:

There is one major factor that I have noticed with both Swype and SlideIT It’s the memory usage.
Swype 9.19 MB
SlideIT 1.85 MB

Reply
- By stefano on October 19, 2010 at 2:59 pm:
  
  what have you used to misure the memory of swype and slideit ?
  
  Reply
By Charles Plager on June 9, 2010 at 5:24 am:

Slide-it does allow word correction, both just after you finish typing the word and as you go back and fix several words back (so I disagree with your chart above).

I agree with your conclusions about the graffiti interface (maybe something interesting will happen here in the future).

I missed the Swype beta, so I can’t compare SlideIT to it, but I have used Shapewriter (free). Both keyboards are much better than the default Android keyboard, but I found the Shapewriter was a memory hog and would make my phone really drag. SlideIT has a much smaller memory footprint and is well worth the money. (Note with the Euro falling against other currencies, now is a great time to buy if you’re not in Europe )

One last comment: I have a MyTouch. I was missing the physical slide-out keyboard from my last phone, but after using SlideIt (and ShapeWriter), I am now perfectly happy to not have a physical keyboard anymore.

Reply
By digitalzen on June 23, 2010 at 11:00 am:

Been using SlideIT for a couple of weeks. My broadband at home died last night (modem) and I had to write an emergency letter on my Droid. No problemo. Slower than my usual 70 wpm, but it got the job done. I would have had arthritis in both thumbs if I’d used either the physical or the regular virtual keyboard.

Another thing: it works accurately even in the portrait orientation. Try THAT with the virtual keyboard!

This app is an absolute must for anyone who does more on their mobile than just texting and playing around. If Google doesn’t buy this guy and his app, they’re absolutely nuts. This is the app that should be bundled with Android, not that memory hog Swype (and I DID have the beta…I uninstalled). No comparison.

I’d REALLY love to see the voice recognition enabled, though. That’s the one drawback.

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By digitalzen on June 23, 2010 at 11:12 am:

How about that! I just downloaded the update, and guess what! VR is enabled, although I haven’t quite figured out how to use it yet. As far as I can tell, you can use the keyboard or VR, but not a combination. May be wrong about that, though. Early days.

Reply
- By Antonio Wells on June 23, 2010 at 3:21 pm:
  
  Hmmm, downloading the update and checking out. That would be awesome…
  
  Reply
By Brerlapn on June 23, 2010 at 9:09 pm:

I’ve checked the voice recognition, and you are able to speak text and then use the keyboard in the updated version. I think slideIT does a better job of predicting text than the htc keyboard, but i could just be more accurate with slideIT.

Reply
By Zaid on August 15, 2010 at 11:24 am:

Great app, love it, you the best guys
Could you please tell me how to activate the speech to text input in your new update 2.0.1?
thank you

Reply
By Jason Wingfield on September 10, 2010 at 9:54 am:

This keyboard is amazing. I’ve been using it for 2 days now and don’t plan on ever going back to the default touch kb. Many times I’m thinking of a word and I’m certain I botched sliding over the letters, and voila – SlideIT gets it right anyway! I can send longer more descriptive text messages and emails now; before I would dread having to enter a detailed paragraph.

I highly recommend this app – anyone can learn how to use it quickly.

The only thing I would like to see in a future release, especially if I’m paying for it, is better support for smilies. Right now you have to use graffiti to enter brackets.

Reply
- By Charles Plager on September 10, 2010 at 12:07 pm:
  
  You can setup a shortcut to make smiley faces (I use ASD, for example). You can also enter brackets from the symbols keyboard (hit the 1/4 key to loop through the other 3 pages of symbols)
  
  Reply
  - By Jason Norment on September 10, 2010 at 12:39 pm:
    
    @Charles: Great tip!
    
    Reply
By John G on September 19, 2010 at 7:22 am:

Could not purchase this app as it would not accept my credit card! (first time ever rejection).

Reply
- By Julie on September 25, 2010 at 1:24 pm:
  
  Mine either, but mine is a debit card and the card company does not allow charges out of the US, or not in US currency. I emailed the people at Dasur who said we would soon be able to purchase the program through their website (that was in Aug) but not available yet – still just through the Android market. I am hoping that they will accept Pay Pal or have other arrangements to use with debit cards. I absolutely love the program but I have had 2 demos expire and now it won’t let me have another demo. I am using shapewriter for now but I am sooo inaccurate with it. If you can find another way of purchasing it, please let me know!
  
  Reply
By Chris on November 3, 2010 at 10:54 pm:

Hi. I just bought SlideIt and have it installed and enabled but it doesn’t work at all, What am I doing wrong?

Reply
- By Charles on November 4, 2010 at 1:06 pm:
  
  On input box, press and hold until a window pops up. Choose input method and then slideit keyboard.
  
  Reply
- By Antonio Wells on November 4, 2010 at 1:08 pm:
  
  Have you switch the “Input Method” thus switching the keyboard?
  
  Reply
By noisyKricket on November 5, 2010 at 12:29 am:

I’ve got both the paid version of SlideIT and Swype on my phone. Been using both off an on for about a month. I want to like Swype more because the way it looks, its darker laid out better, and you can long press the keys to get your numbers and symbols with is pretty nice. But, SlideIT is just much smoother for me. It does auto correct spelling and you can be a lot sloppier with how you are sliding your finger around than with Swype. Also if you mess up the word you’re typing you can delete the entire thing by hitting delete once, you have to long press delete with Swype. It’s word prediction seems to work better as well. And I can text faster with it.

If you could combine the two keyboards you have a monster, but if you gotta choose one, I’d go with SlideIT.

Reply
By andi on December 10, 2010 at 10:58 am:

unique methods. but, risks to the screen

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By lizzy on January 17, 2011 at 6:34 am:

excellent app. easy to use

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By Groove on February 8, 2011 at 4:32 am:

I discovered this SlideIT keyboard a couple of months ago and have been using it ever since. Since I bought it I haven’t used anything else. It works great and is much more accurate then the ones I tried before. Sending emails is much faster now, and I can tweet with one hand in about 5 seconds! I recommended it to all my family, and even my father manages to use it on the new tablet we got him for his birthday, and he used to have trouble using a mouse! I found it at http://mobiletextinput.com/Product/SlideIT/Android/download.php.

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By Greg S on February 12, 2013 at 1:56 pm:

I used the SlideIt free version until it expired and loved it. It worked flawlessly. However, after I purchased and downloaded the paid version of SlideIt, it keeps reverting to the standard Android keyboard.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled the paid SlideIt version 3 times now and completely reconfigured it to work. Unfortunately, the damned thing keeps reverting to the standard Android keyboard after a single use and it is seriously pissing me off. I am using a Samsung Nexus S 4G

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix this issue?

Reply