Swiftkey vs Google vs Swype for Japanese input

Summary:

SwiftKey
  +Fastest for Japanese input
  +Switching languages is easy
Google Japanese input
  +Almost as fast
  +Excellent dictionary
  -English support is poor - but you can switch input methods
Swype
  +Still excellent for handwriting input - possibly useful for beginners to Japanese
  -Considerably slower for Japanese

So, every once and a while, I look through the Google play store and try and find a better way of typing Japanese on my mobile, because frankly, I do a lot of that, and a couple of minutes investigating which method is fastest will pay off in the long run.

Previously, I compared the Swype, Google, and Wnn keyboards. Since then, I've changed phones twice (once to an Aquos Crystal, then to a Kyocera KC01). The increased processing power of these more modern devices makes switching keyboard methods easier, so for a long time I was switching between the Google methods, which still provide excellent predictions for both languages*.

More recently I have been using the Swiftkey keyboard, and despite the fact they have done away with the 12-key keyboard (which works really well with Japanese input), I have increasingly found that it is quicker than Google Japanese Input.

To be sure, I conducted a small test using the following text:

"17日は前線を伴って低気圧が九州に近づくでしょう。九州は昼頃から雨が降り始める見込みです。中国、四国も午前は広く雨で、夜は近畿でも雨が降り出すでしょう。東海、北陸、関東も夜はところどころで雨や雪が降る見込みです。東北と北海道は日本海側で雪のところがありますが、晴れ間の出る所もあるでしょう。18日月曜日の朝は関東の内陸部でも雪の積もるところがありそうです。"

I should probably have used a shorter text... My thumb aches... But this should hopefully make differences between the different methods more apparent.

So, this is how long it took to type with each method:
6:06 with SwiftKey
6:20 with Google Japanese Input in 12-key format
7:49 with Swype keyboard in qwerty format, tapping, not swyping.

These results tally fairly well with my more qualitative observations; Swiftkey is only slightly better at Japanese than Google, but both of these methods are superior to Swype. I would point out that swyping is still not particularly usable for Japanese, but the word prediction is just about sufficient to make tapping viable.

As well as being the fastest method for inputting Japanese, switching to English in SwiftKey is faster than changing input methods with Google (again, footnote*), and the English prediction for SwiftKey is fairly capable. Nonetheless, for words with unusual characters, my gut feeling is that Google performs much better. Additionally, my main gripe with Swiftkey is that it is very easy to mis-press the vowel extension "ー" key instead of "a", and SwiftKey's programming isn't intelligent enough to reinterperet the extension as an "a" depending upon the rest of the word. Then of course, Swype has an excellent integrated handwriting recognition system, which might be worth it for those who need to input characters they don't know the pronounciation for (I imagine, however, that this is mostly going to be in the context of looking words up in a dictionary, for which aedict offers a fairly good method that isn't keyboard-dependent. Plus, free handwriting alternatives now exist).

The bottom line, however, is that SwiftKey is faster and more convenient when switching languages, and for me, these are the deciding factors.

*As I've mentioned before, despite being able to type English using "Google Japanese Input", the prediction is awful, and so I rely on changing input methods.

Japan "Enters the era of smartphones"

According to BBC News, Japan has freshly entered "the era of smartphones", and now everyone is worrying that we'll all be bumping into each other over here because we're too inconsiderate to look up from our LCD displays while crossing the street.

I'd like to point out that, if Japan has really been slow to adopt smartphones, there are two very good reasons for this:

1) The preexisting phones in Japan were unimaginably superior to the pre-smartphones of Europe. I remember coming to Japan for the first time in 2007 and being amazed at the capabilities offered by my Japanese mobile. In addition to the basics such as a camera etc., it had navigation (maybe GPS, or perhaps based on triangulation of transmitters), and email. My wife -then girlfriend- had a slightly better mobile that supported even nicer features such as TV: it honestly made phones on the UK market look absolutely laughable.

According to the wiki, the iPhone came out that year, but it was at least a year before it even entered the Japanese market. And if you already had a decent "standard" Japanese mobile, you might wonder at the advantage in getting an iPhone back then. In fact, according to Wikipedia "In 1999, the Japanese firm NTT Docomo released the first smartphones to achieve mass adoption within a country".

Basically, either the features Japan's phones were too competitive compared to our notion of "smartphones", or they were already fully-fledged smartphones. Effectively, Japan was using smartphones before anyone else. Maybe they weren't touch-screen, but they were powerful beasts for their time.

2) Utilising smartphones to their full potential requires a decent internet connection, and the mobile companies over here are very happy to charge an extraordinary amount of money for this service. There is very little choice when it comes to data plans, and if you go with one of the "big 3" providers here, you options are all or nothing. I'm not sure if this has been the case previously (there is a 6 year gap between 2008 and 2013 where I was in the UK), but I suspect expense will have been a big motivator for holding onto older mobile technology.

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With that out of the way... I do wonder about the whole "dumbwalking" thing. I guess with the increases in functionality, there is a greater likelihood that people will be walking and doing something on their mobile, especially now things like LINE allow you to message without spending any yen. Increased adoption of phones in general is also likely to be a big contributor (even my 10 yr old nephew has a dumbed-down phone). Nonetheless, Docomo's simulation of everyone crossing the road while staring at their phones is really just a bit of sciency fun. I'm sure the simulations may have some use when realistic parameters are used, but you don't need me to tell you that most people will actually be looking where they are going. This is illustrated very cutely in the end of the BBC's article, where the author sets himself the goal of walking across a busy junction, deliberately not looking up from his phone, and the fact that "I'm sure I'm going to get hit, but after a few seconds I relax. It's OK. Everyone's reacting for me", and "It's so silly I have to look up". This is how the real world works: people try to get out of the way, but they are generally aware of the need to stop, and look up when necessary.

To be honest, its a nice little article, but I just get the feeling the author is trying to write life into an issue that simply doesn't exist.

Then again, I've yet to live in Tokyo.