Thanks for posting this! After using it for a day I'd like to offer my impressions of how this compares to ShapeWriter.
Pros for Swype
- very nice look and feel
- like the alternate keyboards
- seems a bit faster than ShapeWriter
- landscape mode looks nice, although the resolution seems to be a bit off
- tap mode is much nicer
Pros for ShapeWriter
- much better handling of double letters, it can almost always guess what I actually want to write, where Swype only guesses right maybe 20% of the time
- auto capitalization of words
-I prefer the horizontal layout of alternate word suggestions, my finger doesn't have to travel so far to pick one
- auto contractions, typing don't, wouldn't, etc is nicer because it almost always guess correctly
- delete entire word if you accidentally insert the wrong one
Mixed
- capitalization, double letters, and apostrophes are easier on ShapeWriter primarily because it guesses so well. Swype's approach is actually more flexible and allows you to be more precise, but you generally need to make fewer corrections with ShapeWriter
- developer support seems to be poor with ShapeWriter, not sure about Swype yet
Overall I think Swype shows more promise and its certainly more visually appealing. As usual I'm getting much better with use, and I'll continue to try Swype as my main keyboard for the next couple of days at least. My hope is that it wil pick up some of the nicer aspects of ShapeWriter, because as it is now I rarely have to switch back to either the stock keyboard or the HTC Touch Input.
And just for reference, I typed this whole post using Swype, and it took me about 20 minutes.
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