Hipjot Creator Planning System-Wide Swype-Style Keyboard For iOS
It could be that a system-wide “Swype”-style virtual keyboard becomes available for iOS soon, if the developer of Hipjot's plan to get into the Cydia Store is a success.
Hipjot, as you may remember, is a note-taking iOS app that launched in the App Store earlier this month. It caught the attention of many due to its implementation of a Swype-style keyboard. Much like SwiftKey (which is also said to be iOS bound, albeit in a different way), Swype is a third-party Android keyboard that allows users to more easily type at faster speeds on a touchscreen smartphone.
Though iDevice users can get a taste of this kind of virtual keyboard using Hipjot, the keyboard itself is limited to the application alone; Apple locks down core elements of its iOS (like the keyboard), and while we're indeed hoping the Cupertino, Calif. company might launch a Swype-style keyboard with iOS 8, for now, we're not going to see one launch from a third-party developer. That is, not with Apple's consent, at least.
Because if the developer of Hipjot - called Widjaja - is successful, we could see Hipjot's more efficient keyboard get released in a system-wide iteration for jailbroken iDevices. The news surfaced online in a Reddit post (which came to our attention from iDownloadBlog), in which Widjaja explains:
Greetings, developer here.
I've got a lot of questions related to jailbreak though – like will that make Apple think I stole their sweetroll, i.e put me on a bad standing with them? I would love for this keyboard to be adopted anywhere it's possible though. The app is probably a limiting factor, because it's quite cryptic. I use it everyday but I guess people will probably still find them confusing.
Anyways, help on moving this to cydia [sic] would be appreciated, as I look into it.
Though somewhat unsure in his initial post, the developer went on to note that he's going to have a go at bringing a universal Hipjot keyboard to the Cydia Store. He told other Reddit users: “Looks like I'll be jailbreaking my spare phone.”
Earlier today, we explained how a recent post from the @evleaks Twitter account indicated that another third-party app, called SwiftKey Note, would bring a similar Swype-style keyboard to Apple's mobile OS in the form of an iOS application. By offering iDevice users system-wide access to a similar keyboard, however, Hipjot's developer looks set to go one step further.
Here's wishing the developer luck! We'll keep you updated with further information as we receive it.
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