You never know what you have…
Sep 19th, 2010 by Cathy Jo Nelson
…until you don’t have it anymore. Back in June a friend introduced me to Swype. Being a relative new user of my droid phone (the cheapest one I could get) I was really struggling with the input of text. I guess one could say as a forty-something year old (cough, oh wow what a difficult admission) I was digitally challenged by this phone. Then comes Swype. Chris Craft showed it to me on his phone (Droid Incredible), and I definitely got excited! But then he disappointed me by telling me it wasn’t available to just anyone, as it is still in beta. SHUCKS!!!
But as a networked person who avidly reads online, I somehow stumbled upon the news that Swype was looking for more beta testers through TechCrunch. I immediately visited their site clicking on the link to become a beta tester, and was disappointed again. Apparently the method was to input your email address and hope you get selected. Being leery in general about providing my email address on little known websites I was somewhat concerned but decided I would do this one. A couple of weeks later, I had the invite.
A Swyper is born!
I’ve been using Swype since mid June and really loved to show it off to anyone interested in seeing it or hearing about it. Until Friday. The afternoon of Friday, September 19, I turned on my phone (I don’t waste the battery at school since I don’t get great reception inside the library) I was extremely disappointed to have a message pop up saying my Swype trial had ended. WHAT!??
Your Swype trial has expired.
Of course I turned to friends who used it. Chris, the friend who introduced it to me, mentioned that I should have been a beta tester–little did he know I was. I began researching and discovered that I needed the updated Swype through their site–meaning uninstall the Swype installer app and the Swype app, and then reinstall both, all which had to happen using my phone and logging into the beta download site. Thankfully because I am a beta tester, I have an account to the beta swype download site, and was able to get my update. I am once again happily “Swyping.” So once again, as the Swype websites says–Goodbye typing. Hello Swyping. This folks is an AWESOME tool, forty-something or not! (I now understand that many of the newer android phones are coming out with the beta program pre-installed. LUCKY YOU!)
Read more on Swype here, here, and here or watch this video demo/promo.
Photo from www.flickr.com/photos/jdlasica/2855604800/in/photostream/
I wish they had Swype for the iPhone
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It is a nifty app. I predict the iphone will develop a similar app. Apple cannot have a competitor offer something cooler.