Microsoft SwiftKey Discontinued on iOS Devices: Report

Microsoft has announced the discontinuation of its support for its predictive QWERTY Keyboard application software, Swiftkey on iOS devices. This development will result in the app being delisted from Apple App Store on October 5th.

SwiftKey since it got acquired by Microsoft in 2016 has been used worldwide by different operating systems like Android, iOS, and Windows (Touch Keyboard). The app is popular for its artificial intelligence in understanding what a user plans in writing based on the way they swipe their fingers and also past searched/typed texts.

According to a report by ZDnet, Apple's policies around safeguarding its information system could be the reason Microsoft discontinued Swifkey support on iOS devices since the application requires integration and grant of permissions to function as intended.

However, it is likely that Microsoft might have been planning to discontinue the Swiftkey app on the Apple App Store for a while due to its lack of updates and maintenance on the iOS platform for over a year compared to the Android OS getting regular updates at least monthly - e.g as of the time this article was written (29/09/2022), there was an update on Swiftkey app for Android yesterday (28/09/2022).

So what is the hope for iOS users - iPhone, Ipad? Well, iOS users can still make use of the Swiftkey application on their device until they manually uninstall the app or migrate to another iOS device. So the app will not be automatically uninstalled or stop working, it will keep working.

The app remains very much active for Android users, and as said earlier, it gets regular updates on Google Play Store. Microsoft Windows PC will also continue to support the app for its touch screen keyboard - Touch screen PC support only.