Predictive text

[k1s23]

hey there. i think its not bad in english. two things that dont work properly in both windows phone 8.1 and windows 10 mobile are quotation mark and back slash.

about quotation mark
whenever i am swiping words then type a quotation mark the first time, it automatically connects to the previous word even though thats not the end of a quote (so for example: here is a sentence" instead of: here is a sentence ").

about back slash
whenever i am swiping words then type a back slash the first time, it doesnt connect to the previous word (so for example: here is a sentence / instead of: here is a sentence/)

basically if both were reversed, quotation mark is spaced after the previous word and back slash connected to the previous word, that would be perfect.

predictive text in japanese is another story.... if someone can share my frustration that would be great.

 

[GraniteStateColin]

I believe it's worse. Swftkey (swipe to type) is DEFINITELY worse. Even if you slowly go from letter to letter and pause on each one, it will ignore that and suggest more popular words that would have a similar motion. This never or almost never happened on Windows Phone 8.1.

This is actually my single biggest gripe with Windows 10 on phone, which I otherwise much prefer over Windows Phone 8.1.

 

[romaink]

Thought I was the only one. I posted this through feedback before, but it most likely was ignored. I've moved on though. Too many issues that Microsoft will not address. It's like they're pretending that we're not here.

 

[xandros9]

Once upon a time, I was impressed with webOS 2.0's text correction. It was simple, but unobtrusive and quick to undo its changes if I hit backspace. It was a nice step up over what I saw as iOS 4/5's somewhat overzealous autocorrect although typing on the Pre's physical keyboard helped precision greatly over me ham-thumbing my way through iOS's still excellent virtual keyboard.

And then Windows Phone 8 came along (I believe I got onboard with GDR2) and while I wasn't quite blown away, I was still impressed in that in many cases I could write partial sentences, or maybe even get out complete basic ones just from the keyboard's prediction bar. (it's kinda what I wished iOS's to be, three words at a time is a tad restrictive, but then again I've only seriously used iOS on a 4" display or smaller.)

When Windows Phone 8.1 came out with Swype/shape-writing feature, I noticed the predictive text/"what is xandros9 attempting to type?" engine was top-notch when I was swiping on the keyboard. (That video where WP8.1 held the record for fastest text input for a short while? It felt attainable if I tried, even getting a relatively obscure word.) It wasn't quite mind-reading, but it could hold up the illusion in some cases.

A tradeoff though was that the text suggestions were tuned to be more oriented towards what the current word could be, for when it misinterpreted a swipe, instead of predicting and offering what could be the next word, which WP8 did well. An acceptable tradeoff I suppose given the speedier input of shape-writing.

And then Windows 10 Mobile appeared.

For context, the bulk of my experience is from the few Production 10586/Threshold 2 builds leading up to the Anniversary Update launch and a bit after that. It could have improved since then but I wouldn't know.

I was frankly very disappointed.

If I were to type at a normal/fast clip on my 640, the keyboard would glitch and think that my individual taps were part of one big swipe and input gibberish. So I had to artificially slow down my typing so the OS could keep up. It was not unlike typing on an old iPhone where the keyboard would momentarily freeze but then catch up on your inputs, except instead of catching up, W10M's keyboard outright gave up. No amount of hard resets or WDRT trips and subsequent upgrades would fix it. (which also didn't fix my crashing Cortana but that's another story for another post...)

Swiping words was a largely acceptable alternative except I would find W10M selecting more obscure word options, even if I babied it with clear, definitive endpoints. I could be careless in my swiping and reasonably expect 8.1 to get it right, or at least have the word I meant as an option. Not so here. And that's a mighty shame.

 

[zr2s10]

The more important question: Why has MS not yet ported SwiftKey to W10M?

Yes! Talk about absurd. But no surprise since they've abandoned us... Swiftkey is the best keyboard (I've used), and it's just one more thing that Microsoft isn't fully utilizing on their own platform. Nadella can suck my left nutella...

 

[anthonyng]

I always felt that MS would fix it, but RS2 now... and I haven't heard it be improved yet.

It's not like users aren't putting feedback about that either, if WindowsCentral has some insider contact, would be nice to have an official statement why it's different. @Jason Ward must have a story about this!

 

[TheFerrango]

Yes, the swype prediction is way less reliable (at least for the Italian language).

As for the next word prediction, meh. it seems to be working and adapting to my way of writing, so I'd guess that's at least very close to how it was

 

[adamyos]

I feel it is definitely worse than WP 8.1. I use a Lumia 950XL as my daily driver and sometimes text using a WP8.1 on a Lumia 530. I can easily feel the difference. The prediction and auto-correction is much better on WP8.1. This is an English US keyboard on both.

 

[RHoudek]

It is most definitely worse. Most notably that it keeps trying to use proper names when unnecessary. It's been even worse in some preview builds, but it's still not as good as it once was.

 

[kdk24z]

Swipe/predictive typing is absolutely worse in WM10 than WM8.1. I had a L925 that I had 8.1 on and LOVED the typing on that thing. Then I installed WM10 on it and thought there was something wrong with my phone because the typing was beyond horrible and unacceptable.

My L925 just couldn't quite handle WM10 very well, so I rolled back to 8.1 and once again the typing on it was FANTASTIC! My L925 was "getting tired" so I purchased a new-to-me L1520 and with 8.1 on it the typing was excellent. I updated the L1520 to WM10 and the swipe/predictive typing is SO terrible, I usually get frustrated and just stop trying to type that way.

 

[Wevenhuis]

Is it just me, or does predictive text on 10 mobile feel inferior to 8.1? Instead of suggestions based on what I've typed, it seems quite certain that I've mistyped and suggests words with completely different letters, right up until I only have one or two letters left. On a positive note, it is relearning my particular world, and now knows that Margarita Tuesday is a thing. However, it no longer suggests the poop emoji after I type "I have to..." That always made me smile.

No, you are right. Predictive text, especially with the virtual keyboard is worse in windows 10 mobile than it is in windows phone 8. For many words in English or my language setting I often have to choose the 5-10th word in the list to find the right word. In a bit less than half the time the word I chose isn't even in the list and I have to actually type letter for letter over half a word before the algorhythm finds the word.My experience with windows phone 8 was that the predictive algotrhyhm was far better. I have learned to live with it because I have seen microsoft not improve any of this in the last 3 years. But I can't say I have become more productive with windows on this matter. The spelling and grammar mistakes due to false prediction are hideous at best. Nothing good to say on this feature. Don't understand why they still have not changed the algorhythm for all languages, including English.

Language is an issue that is plaguing windows badly. I still don't understand after 3 years of windows 10 why microsoft can't prioritize this. It's part of a basic experience in windows. Poor language support is a poor experience at the basic level. Microsoft is praising and marketing Cortana for example too. But Cortana, at its fundamental level has a flawed experience due to poor language support. But maybe that's for another discussion.

 

[Camaroon]

It has without a doubt gotten worse! I've wondered this for a while so it's nice someone started this thread. I used to be able to type really quickly on it, either by typing or swyping, but it's now impossible to go one or two words without having to correct something. I use SwiftKey on a Galaxy S5 and it's night and day better! Also, since I've updated to the creators update, it never automatically capitalizes the 'I' like it used to. Very frustrating to have a conversation or type out anything of length now.

 

[zagiame]

Is it just me, or does predictive text on 10 mobile feel inferior to 8.1? Instead of suggestions based on what I've typed, it seems quite certain that I've mistyped and suggests words with completely different letters, right up until I only have one or two letters left. On a positive note, it is relearning my particular world, and now knows that Margarita Tuesday is a thing. However, it no longer suggests the poop emoji after I type "I have to..." That always made me smile.

Not sure about the text prediction but for sure Cortana on Windows Phone 8.1 is understanding more from the contend of my mails and messages than on Windows 10 Mobile.

 

[bluejoker]

Is it just me, or does predictive text on 10 mobile feel inferior to 8.1? Instead of suggestions based on what I've typed, it seems quite certain that I've mistyped and suggests words with completely different letters, right up until I only have one or two letters left. On a positive note, it is relearning my particular world, and now knows that Margarita Tuesday is a thing. However, it no longer suggests the poop emoji after I type "I have to..." That always made me smile.

The predictive text is definitely worse in win10 mobile than on 8.1 or even 7.5. No doubt about it. The predictive text in 8.1 was magnificent and smoked all the other platforms' predictive ability imho. You could have used microsoft wordflow on any letters and it would magically write out the intended coherent sentence lol.

 

[eddieDOTexe]

the best one was in WP7

Not sure about the text prediction but for sure Cortana on Windows Phone 8.1 is understanding more from the contend of my mails and messages than on Windows 10 Mobile.

Yep, this too.
I can no longer ask her "How do I get home from here?" because she'll just look up "how do i get home from here" instead of giving me directions to my house.

windows 10 mobile has a lot of neat features but the features carried over from previous versions are significantly inferior to that of 8.1 and Wp7 before it.
This trend started in 8.1.

 

[andrewb65]

I've been complaining about this ever since the migration. WP 8.1 prediction was verging on telepathic. It knew what you were going to type before you did. And it learned words I regularly used. Even now, the WP10 keyboard can't even predict my name.

 

[iSingBass]

Hold the spacebar down and you can slide the keyboard up and down.

Well, sure enough. It can also be shifted left-or-right with the same type of action. Pretty spiffy.

 

[Letsgetacid]

It's definitely worse. It chokes on any words longer than 8 letters long. It's always missing a form of a word you need (like a plural or past version). It will never get the word "okay" correctly, no matter how perfect you swipe. It's like they started from scratch, despite having a solid foundation in 8.1.

 

[TuanLVT]

i live in finland and i though it was only me (finnish ppl) that the predictive text got worse on win10m than the win8.1 but it seems like everyone here has the same issue... why msft, why!?
Lumia1020 Lumia950

 

[Timbre70]

This is the going experience on Windows 10 Mobile on my Lumia 650.