Microsoft has confirmed that it is to remove its typing app SwiftKey from the App Store on October 5, 2022, though existing owners can continue to use it for now.
Microsoft SwiftKey is a typing app, installed as an iOS keyboard, which lets users type by swiping over the glass instead of picking out individual letters. It interprets from where a user swipes, what word they most likely want to write, and it inserts that word for them.
It's not the only third-party iPhone keyboard to provide this service, and it's also not the only one to be scrapped. The reasons for both Microsoft's SwiftKey and Kosta Eleftheriou's FlickType being abandoned must include the fact that Apple now provides a similar feature.
Apple's version is called QuickPath, and it has been available since iOS 13 in 2019. Microsoft acquired SwiftKey app in 2016, but according to ZDNet, it is now removing it from the App Store.
"As of October 5, support for SwiftKey iOS will end and it will be delisted from the Apple App Store," a spokesperson told the publication. "For those customers who have SwiftKey installed on iOS, it will continue to work until it is manually uninstalled or a user gets a new device."
Microsoft's spokesperson also directed users to a support page, but currently that page has no more details. It does not clarify the issue about when "a user gets a new device."
It's most likely that if a user migrates their data to the new device, that they will continue to have the app. But it isn't confirmed.
Microsoft will continue to support SwiftKey on Android.
