The excellent Swype on latest firmware for Nokia N950 (and probably in the N9 soon)

The latest firmware update (PR1.1) for Nokia N950 has brought many improvements, but perhaps one of the best ones is the inclusion of Swype. I've tried Swype before in other devices, but I never was really convinced. That is until I tried it on my N950. After playing with it for about 15 minutes, I simply was blown away with it!

 Once I got used to it, it was amazing how fast I was able to write using Swype. Even though the Nokia N950 has an excellent physical keyboard which is the best I've ever used in a device of this size, I prefer to use the Swype keyboard for one very valid reason: it is faster! At least for shorter messages, if one takes into account the time needed to switch orientation, slide the keyboard and, when finished, close the keyboard again. By the same time I could have finished my message using Swype.

Of course there are situations where Swype simple does not work well. I've tried, just for fun, use Swype in the Terminal app and, as any intelligent creature could easily predict, it didn't work at all. But it could have been funny. Could have, but it wasn't. It simply was a frustrating experience. The simple truth is, for Terminal and such (whatever the "such" could be, since I can't think of anything else), nothing beats a physical keyboard. For everything else there is Swype!

According to my understanding, the PR1.1 firmware update for Nokia N950 is almost the same as the next update for Nokia N9, which should come out soon. So all you N9 owners who miss the "proper" physical keyboard, do not despair, Swype is coming which renders the physical keyboard almost obsolete. Just enable Swype from the Settings and you never miss the ancient physical keyboard again. Well alright, maybe a little, especially if you use the Terminal a lot. But for all normal (read: non Terminal using) users, rejoice! Swype is here! Soon... ish. I think.