Microsoft is ceasing support for its predictive keyboard SwiftKey for iOS. The company confirmed that the app would be delisted from the App Store next week.
A Reddit thread from a month ago emphasized the lack of updates to the app for more than a year.
Microsoft didn’t give a specific reason for its decision to kill off the app. Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet suspects that it may be related to Apple’s policies about granting developers access to particular parts of its software since if it chooses not to, “there’s no easy or good way to make a product which needs integration to work.”
“As of October 5, support for SwiftKey iOS will end, and it will be delisted from the Apple App Store. Microsoft will continue support for SwiftKey Android and the underlying technology that powers the Windows touch keyboard. For those customers who have SwiftKey installed on iOS, it will continue to work until it is manually uninstalled or a user gets a new device. Please visit Support.SwiftKey.com for more information,” Chris Wolfe, the director of product management at SwiftKey, said in a statement.
SwiftKey has been available on iOS since 2014, two years before Microsoft acquired the app. SwiftKey will remain open and fully supported on Android, and Microsoft continues to roll out regular updates.
Last year, SwiftKey brought clipboard syncing across Windows and Android devices that use the app but said it was “impossible to sync your clips to iOS” at the time.
