SwiftKey announces Photo Themes, teams up with a National Geographic contributing photographer

In only 7 years since its initial release, SwiftKey Keyboard managed to cover over 230 languages and two mobile operating systems. The company behind it was purchased by Microsoft in February 2016 for US$250 million. In this moment, SwiftKey Keyboard is used by an impressive number of Android and iOS users. In the Google Play store, for example, its number of downloads is in the 100,000,000 to 500,000,000 range. This week, this popular app has received a new feature that has a name saying it all - Photo Themes.

According to the official blog post published yesterday by the SwiftKey team, the new feature is available already and, if using various personal shots is not an option, its users can pick one of the 12 curated images that Keith Ladzinski provided exclusively to SwiftKey.

Ladzinski is a professional adventure photographer who worked for big names such as National Geographic, ABC, and Discovery Channel. Next to the exclusive gallery for SwiftKey users, he also contributed with a video that shows a few useful photography techniques that can be used even when shooting with a mobile phone or a cheap camera (sadly, not all of his tips can be applied without having a professional camera at your disposal).

To get started with Photo Themes, the users of the Android app should go to the Themes tab in SwiftKey Settings, while those on iOS should choose Design right after opening the app. In both cases, SwiftKey provides detailed instructions on its website for those who might run into trouble while using the Keyboard app.

In the Google Play store, the current rating of the SwiftKey Keyboard is 4.5 out of 5, after no less than 2,475,334 user votes. Its iOS sibling has more than 4/5 stars, but far fewer votes - 2,640 for the version that was released yesterday and 14,669 for all versions. However, we should also keep in mind that this app arrived about 3 years ago.

These being said, feel free to check Keith Ladzinski's photo tips below and, if you missed it so far, maybe you should also take the SwiftKey Keyboard app for a spin.