Why Microsoft's Acquisition of SwiftKey Has Me Jumping Ship (Probably)

I'll be honest, I don't like Microsoft's modern strategy for basically anything it's doing. Yesterday, Microsoft announced plans to acquire SwiftKey, my keyboard of choice, for $250 million. Seems like a lot, right? It really isn't. Microsoft isn't paying for the keyboard, they're paying for the branding, the research, the users, and the technology. SwiftKey has made many leaps in typing research that makes their suggestions and autocorrect scarily accurate. Three posts ago I talked about SwiftKey's Neural keyboard, which uses AI neural networks to predict typing and make typing much more accurate. So far, this isn't something that any other keyboard uses. This research along with the user base and user data makes SwiftKey extremely valuable to Microsoft.

Why don't I like it? Microsoft has basically ruined everything it has acquired the past few years. Take Skype for example. Once a great method for communicating with friends and family, its new, unintuitive and ad-ridden interface has made it basically unusable for me. I've talked about how Microsoft's meddling has caused me to move to Discord in a previous post, and I can only assume their guidance will lead SwiftKey in a similar direction. From Skype, to Halo, to Nokia, to Minecraft, to SwiftKey. Microsoft's acquisitions benefit no-one but themselves and those in their ecosystem. Unfortunately, I'm not in Microsoft's ecosystem. The only Microsoft product I use on a daily basis is Windows, and that's only because I have to.

I'm not against the acquisition of items in general, but personally, Microsoft is not a company I appreciate acquiring the apps I use. I'll be honest, though. This isn't the sole reason I'm attempting to switch from SwiftKey. I've felt quite a bit of lag on it compared to the stock keyboard. Also, I feel like SwiftKey's transition from a paid app to a free app with paid themes was greedy at best.

So what am I using instead? Chrooma Keyboard is a fairly new addition to Android keyboards, taking after the default Google Keyboard but adding a few cool features. It adapts to the color of the app it is being used in and has a number row, but other than that, it's basically stock. Other options for keyboards I've considered in the past include Fleksy, but my main complaint about that is how difficult it is to get to commas and other punctuation, and the gestures have quite a learning curve. Chrooma Keyboard is a great alternative to the stock Google Keyboard, and I recommend it fully.