The official response is that location data is used for "regional dialects"... makes sense, but is IP geolocation not close enough? The screenshot there doesn't make it clear but is this coarse or fine location data? My keyboard, no matter how smart, shouldn't need to know where exactly it is on Earth to within a few meters. Within a state or town, fair enough.
I think this is poor user UI. I mean, in this day in age when so many people travel through different countries weekly on pleasure or business, their keyboard layout changes accordingly?
I don't think the keyboard changes UI - from the description it sounds like they augment the dictionary with words that other people near you are using in their vocabulary.
Still, it doesn't make a lot of sense that they need to do that many location requests. Why should where I'm standing right now affect what words are in my dictionary? It's a poor proxy at best, the words that I use in my language are a product of both where I grew up and where I spend my time. Where I happen to be standing does not always matter that much.
I wonder if bucketing users into "these people use the same words" would give better results?
> Why should where I'm standing right now affect what words are in my dictionary?
Since Swype has do to a lot of inference from your gestures, it seems reasonable that it may perform better when inferring proper names with some location awareness.
For example, if I am in a particular city, and wanted to type the name of a street where I am.
I am not saying that's a feature I find compelling; it does sound reasonable though. Letting the user chose this behavior (and the permission), would be best.
The crucial point is: does it ever send the position to the Swype servers? If yes then it would be very suspicious on the part to receive thousands of requests per day per user.
If not, then ok it's terrible programming, but nothing worth getting paranoid about.
I have noticed that Swype is really good at guessing names of streets and restaurants and bars, and other proper noun locations I am physically close to (like walking distance) and much worse at completing correctly things farther away (like 20 min drive away).
If it is checking location data for location specific words it there should me a minimum time between checks as location can can't really change enough to matter in the 20-30 sec it currently uses.
I'm sure that if they used IP-based geolocation, the headline would be: Swype connects to Swype servers almost 4000 times per day, reporting on user location. Unless you're suggesting that a complete IP->country database should be included as part of the database -- I assume there isn't already such a database bundled as part of the Android OS.
IP geolocation on my phone says that I am in Kansas (as a Sprint user), but I am definitely in Atlanta.
Not that I think fine location data is necessary (I don't, and would like clear permissions options), but not sure IP geolocation is a user-friendly substitute if needed.
