Microsoft Word Flow Keyboard for iPhone Removed From App Store

Microsoft has removed the Windows Phone keyboard from App Store and is now encouraging iPhone users to download the SwiftKey Keyboard.

"The 'Word Flow' experiment is now complete! We encourage you to download the SwiftKey Keyboard from the App Store. The SwiftKey product team is frequently building and evaluating new features for SwiftKey and shipping updates," the company said on Microsoft Garage page on Monday.

Microsoft has tested out several iOS keyboards and apparently is focusing on SwiftKey after acquiring the app in February last year. SwiftKey Keyboard uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to automatically learn your writing style, including the emoji you love to use, the words that matter to you and how you like to type.

The keyboard - which also offered a Swype-style keyboard with a conventional layout - was originally launched as a free app last year. It was later updated with new search and prediction features, as well as support for '3D Touch'.

To put things in perspective, Microsoft began inviting people to test the Word Flow keyboard in January last year. It only started testing the app in April, and made it available to all users shortly after.

We reviewed the Word Flow v2 keyboard for iPhone in August last year, and found it to be worthwhile contender in the iOS keyboard category that already had some great offerings such as Google's Gboard. We also said it may come down to personal preferences for what you'll like. If you rarely need one-handed mode and prefer Google over Bing, then Gboard - with its honed gif and emoji search, plus support for languages outside English - will serve you better.

Written with inputs from IANS