Swype

The folks at Swype released a new version of their popular keyboard app for Android last week. It added support for gesture-based shortcuts to copy, cut, or paste text, select all text, create a message in Twitter, or even launch Google Maps using the keyboard.

But there’s a catch: the latest version of Swype only officially supports the Google Nexus S 4G smartphone.

The good news is that hackers swiped a copy of the file, hacked it to work with other devices, and released it to the public. You’ll need to have root access to install the file, as well as a file manager app that can access root system folder and change permissions and a terminal emulator.

In other words, installing the unofficial build of Swype isn’t as simple as simply downloading and running an APK file. But if you’ve been itching to get your hands on the new app and you’re not scared off by AproSamurai’s instructions at the xda-developers forum, you can install the latest build of Swype today.

Update: If you’d rather not use hacked software, you can also now install Swype 3.25 beta on most Android phones. It’s available from the Swype beta website.

via Android Police

Brad Linder

Brad Linder is editor of Liliputing and Mobiputing. He's been tinkering with mobile tech for decades and writing about it since...