Sliding from letter to letter to complete words on mobile devices has become somewhat synonymous with Swype. After being bought by Nuance late last year for a cool $100 million, it seems the new owner is ready to boost Swype’s standing to new heights. The new version of the keyboard app gains more text input choices — allowing users to swipe, tap, speak or write.

Aside from swiping, you can peck one letter at a time as you would on other virtual keyboards. But of course, it has been optimized with Nuance’s own XT9 predictive text technology. Coupled with the personalized dictionary feature, the keyboard will be able to guess your words better and become more accurate with each use. Interestingly, the vocab isn't limited only to what you write using the keyboard; you can have the texting app learn words that you use the most from your emails, texts and other posts.

The third option is to say what you want to write, as Swype comes with an integrated Dragon button that lets you use a speech input. Seeing that dragon symbol is an assurance that you can speak your text naturally. Lastly, you can write letters, words and symbols using your fingertips. If you’re not impressed yet, Swype has also included 55 languages support, making multi-lingual communication simpler.

Nuance Mobile executive vice president and general manager Michael Thompson said that “the new Swype living, learning keyboard ushers in a new era of input, where the keyboard adapts to the users’ unique way of communicating”. If you can’t wait to join that new era, head to beta.swype.com to download the Swype Beta for Android.