F*ck the Swype keyboard for Japanese input and (yet another) general rant on Android IMEs

There are two redeeming qualities about Swype. The first is illustrated by the (albeit censored) title of this post: The ability to register swear words. The second, and the only reason I bought it, was for a dedicated key to switch languages (not to mention the idea of swiping to input Japanese was sexy).

However, my opinion quickly changed once I spent some time actually using Swype in Japanese. The Japanese input of Swype is just bad. This is for a number of reasons. I outlined some in this post half a year ago:

• Very poor dictionary.
• No way to register new Japanese words (that I can find)
• Horrible Japanese swipe prediction to the point of being useless for anything other than very basic grammar.
• No dedicated enter button to accept Japanese input when you don't swipe to enter it, which causes additional frustration.
• No support for kunrei-shiki input when swiping.

To this I'll add more gripes.

• A completely illogical ordering of suggestions, with the most simple suggestion often last. Typing something simple in hiragana will often bring up a slew of complicated words that are attempting to predict what you would type, had you continued to type. But you didn't keep typing; you entered two simple characters, and the characters you entered are often buried at the end of the list of all these characters that in no way, shape, or form whatsoever correspond to anything you actually entered.
• That none of these issues have been addressed at all in any subsequent updates.

Switching to a non-latin script on Android keyboards can be horrendous. It's slowly getting better, though. Both the Google's Android Latin keyboard and their Japanese keyboard allow you to pop up the switch keyboard menu with a long press of the spacebar, which saves the action of pulling down the notification bar and locating the option to switch input methods since it won't be in the same location every time. (Note that you have to push the spacebar on the Japanese keyboard for a slightly longer time.)

I've recently installed the stock Android keyboard, which was actually a bit of a pain in the butt because it is listed as not available in my country on my Docomo Xperia A. I was a real fan of the Google Japanese godan input, so with the spacebar shortcut (which was previously not on the Japanese keyboard), I may go back to using it and just switch keyboards entirely every time I need to switch languages (every. single. time.)

I've also installed the Kii keyboard, which includes a dedicated, one-touch button for switching between English and Japanese, but it seems to lack anything but QWERTY input for Japanese. I haven't used it enough to form an opinion on it's Japanese dictionary, though it is hard to imagine that it could possible be as terrible as Swype's.

I'd consider purchasing Swiftkey if someone convinces me it has a level of support for Japanese that is on par with the Google's Japanese keyboard. Otherwise, I'd just be buying another English keyboard that sucks at Japanese. I already have one of those.