Predictive Keyboard / Word Flow is a joke

[Narr]

I have German installed as well but find the experience better than writing in English. Oddly I get all of the new words Foto rather than Photo, Telefon etc. Also if I'm swiping a German word it will use the ä,ö or ü without any prompting, or have it as a suggestion and the ß is also correct.

 

[kdk24z]

I came searching on the forums to see if anyone else was having such a terrible experience with the swipe keyboard on Windows 10 Mobile. Ugh. It really is just TERRIBLE! I have a L925 that I loaded WM10 on just to try it out, and went back because the L925 just wasn't quite able to handle WM10 very well for me. The one thing I noticed DRASTICALLY was that when I went back to WM8.1 on my L925 was how much BETTER the swipe keyboard was again. The swipe keyboard on WM10 is a disaster and a complete FAIL!

I purchased a wonderful L1520 from this site's 'Marketplace' forum and I really LOVE that phone! Since the L1520 can get WM10 legitimately, I went with that. I'm back again to SWEARING at the swipe keyboard. It's just REALLY freaking AWFUL!

Is there anything that can be done other than wait to see if Microsoft fixes it?

 

[mikosoft]

It's even worse for other languages than English. I regularly switch between English and Slovak and Slovak suggestions are FAR worse than English. i can actually swipe a couple of sentences in English with minimal amount of errors while I have to type around 30-50% of Slovak words because the suggestions are completely off. I posted a feedback a while ago but there doesn't seem to be any improvement apart from what the keyboard has learned from me.
I had to hard-reset my phone in the meantime and I'm not sure if my learned style carried over but it seems it has so at least that is a positive.

 

[madcursor]

It is really bad with other languages, but I have had a far better experience than most. For me, usually English works fine, apart from random capitalised letters but my native language suggestions are horrible. Some suggestions are so ridiculous that I think they made the keyboard too smart. The only explanation I can think of for this ridiculous prediction is that perhaps the keyboard learns the random typos along with actual words and since people make a lot of typos on phone, somehow it prioritises them over actual words. But that's just my experience. So now I just don't use word flow anymore. ****ty solution, but anything that reduces my headaches.

 

[ananimus]

"Me too!" post.

For years I swore I hated phones without physical keyboards. Then I picked up a Lumia 720 just for kicks. OMG. WP8.1 Word Flow was absolutely amazing. I was completely sold that I'd never need buttons again (except camera, plzkthx). Even extremely complicated words or those with letters in the same row almost always worked. If it didn't catch it the first time, backing the word out and putting a short, deliberate pause on each letter worked every time.

Couple months ago moved from a 735 up to 950. Thought, hey, maybe they'll also have fixed the one or two little mistakes the keyboard still makes, and that thinkpad nub looks sweet.

Still haven't fully posted in the 950 review thread because, holy &@^$^ $^&!&^%! This keyboard is a worthless, steaming pile in comparison and I just can't get over it.

1) As someone put it very well above: it has the vocab of a 12 year old.
2) It now inevitably fails hard at words with letters in the same row, and it still does not figure those words out, even if you try again with long, deliberate pauses.
3) It gives incredibly high preference to the name of anyone in my contacts over ordinary words, even when it's painfully obviously incorrect for the context.
4) It wants to capitalize the stupidest things. Like, why does it always want to capitalize "So"?! (This is not related to #2 for me, afaik.)
5) The keyboard as an input device seems to not be treated the same in all contexts? Easiest example is Facebook App (Beta). I know the app is parsing text to see if you're inputting a friend's name. But somehow this interferes with autocorrect and other functions in a way I don't ever remember the 8.1 keyboard behaving.

It really makes me appreciate the magic sauce that was the WP8.1 Word Flow keyboard. Much as I like a lot of the extras in W10M, I miss the old keyboard so badly I'm thinking of dropping back down to my 735. At this point I've almost completely abandoned using swipe gestures for any word longer than 5 letters, and I won't even bother starting to write emails longer than a sentence until I get back to my office computer. /rant

 

[Canjok]

Yeah I don't understand Microsoft. They make so much things just wrong. If we had ios or android, we simply could switch to a different keyboard. But on Wp, we have to stick with those stupid decisions they make.
With the keyboard being a feature with high usage (the highest?), I'm wondering myself how Microsoft tests those features. Maybe they don't test their phones for daily usage. Who knows. /rant

 

[fatclue_98]

f we had ios or android, we simply could switch to a different keyboard.

That's half true. Android let's you pick different keyboards. On iOS, no matter which 3rd party kb you choose it's still the same Apple layout. No dedicated .com key, no dedicated period key except for some username fields and word prediction is still limited to three words at a time.

I'm in complete agreement with the rest here who feel Microsoft really screwed the pooch when they "revised" the word prediction from WP8.1.

 

[EspHack]

That's half true. Android let's you pick different keyboards. On iOS, no matter which 3rd party kb you choose it's still the same Apple layout. No dedicated .com key, no dedicated period key except for some username fields and word prediction is still limited to three words at a time.

I'm in complete agreement with the rest here who feel Microsoft really screwed the pooch when they "revised" the word prediction from WP8.1.

that's what usually happens when you try to fix what isn't broken and is considered by many as the BEST, period. kind of like trying to make a diamond harder, 99% of the time you will just shatter it

 

[fatclue_98]

that's what usually happens when you try to fix what isn't broken and is considered by many as the BEST, period. kind of like trying to make a diamond harder, 99% of the time you will just shatter it

Dream on.