Microsoft seems to be unleashing a flurry of app updates on Android today, specifically those using the beta versions of said apps, with SwiftKey being yet another one to see notable changes. The latest beta update, version 7.2.2.31, has one single item in its changelog, but it might be an important one for many users - after this update, SwiftKey will automatically switch to incognito mode when typing in sensitive fields.
With privacy concerns growing ever stronger, and the possibility of keyboard apps storing sensitive information when they shouldn"t, many of them have added an incognito mode in recent times. Google"s Gboard introduced it in 2017, and it"s actually been available for SwiftKey since late 2016, but you had to turn it on or off manually whenever you needed to.
Now, SwiftKey will do this automatically when it detects that the user is typing in a sensitive field. While the changelog doesn"t specify what this includes, our own testing shows that incognito mode is automatically turned on in InPrivate tabs in the Edge browser, as well as in secret chats in Telegram. It should be noted that, when SwiftKey automatically switched to incognito mode, you won"t be able to turn it off manually. In regular text fields, you can turn it on or off at will.
This is one of the first updates of 2019 for SwiftKey, a few days after Microsoft recapped all the changes it made to the keyboard in 2018. According to the company, SwiftKey is now faster and lighter than its most direct competition, and it got there while adding new features along the way, so you might want to give it a shot. You can download the beta version here to try the new incognito feature, or get the stable release if you"d rather wait.