As an apparent part of the company"s cross-platform strategy, Microsoft has sent out an email to Windows Insiders who own an iPhone, informing them that a preliminary version of its Word Flow virtual keyboard, introduced in Windows Phone 8.1, will be made available for testing.
Word Flow allows users to swipe onscreen characters to type words and form sentences on touchscreen devices. It also includes a predictive text feature—offering suggestions based on previously written words—that improves with usage.
The contents of the email sent out today are as follows:
Hello,
Do you own an iPhone (5S or newer)? Do you think your native iOS keyboard could use improvement?
Word Flow keyboard has long been one of the highly praised features on Windows Phone and was used to break the Guinness World Record for fastest texting. We are now working on extending this keyboard to other platforms, starting with iOS.
Before publicly releasing this keyboard to the App Store, we’d love to give Insiders like you a preview. With your feedback, we’ll build a roadmap of improvements to the keyboard over time.
If you’re interested in participating in this beta program, just send an email to wordflow@microsoft.com with subject line “I want in!” and we’ll be in touch!
The Windows Insider and Word Flow teams
While this news will no doubt generate excitement among Word Flow fans, Microsoft has not revealed when a final version will be made available for iOS or when it will release the virtual keyboard on other platforms such as Android.
As noted by Microsoft, Word Flow made headlines in 2014 for being used to break the previous record for the fastest text ever written on a touchscreen.
Source: Kyle Reddoch (@WinPhanKyle) via Microsoft News