Is Swiping truly quicker than, actually Typing on a Phone?

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

Most keyboard apps on iPhone and Android phones have two options: be careful to tap on each of the letters or you can simply drag your finger over an entire word. These two are time-tested approaches but which of the two is faster?

Swipe or “slide” typing became my favourite starting from the beta version of Swype for the Android platform in 2010. Now I use Gboard but for the most part, I rely on swipe typing. What I was thinking the other day is that maybe I haven’t been using the superior typing method at all and it’s just a waste of my time. Therefore, let us set the theory to the test.

Gboard on Android: Swipe vs Type

First, we’ll start with my home field advantage: the Android version of Gboard. I just typed the sentence “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,” a sentence which contains all the letters in the alphabet, three times and timed the sentential action. And here is how it went for swipe typing.

As mentioned, this is how I usually type, so I’m pretty comfortable with it. I didn’t make a single error. After timing all three sentences, my average came out to 6.95 seconds. Now, here’s how the regular typing played out.

It’s not too shabby, considering I don’t typically type like this. With the help of autocorrect, I nailed all three without errors once again. However, here’s where things get interesting. My average time was 6.18 seconds—nearly a full second faster than swiping.

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iPhone Keyboard: Swipe vs Type

I’m not a frequent iPhone user, but I also wanted to see how things would look on Apple’s infamous keyboard. Again, I started by testing the swipe typing.

My error-free streak came to an abrupt end. Apple struggled to figure out that I was trying to type “fox” and “lazy.” Accuracy aside, my average time for the four sentences came out to 8.07 seconds—much slower than my Android swiping time. But what about tap tap tapping?

Yikes. Can you tell I don’t use the iPhone keyboard very often? Apple still really wanted me to say “fix” instead of “fox,” so I started tapping the suggestion in the latter sentences to get it right. Still, my average time over five sentences was faster than swiping again: 7.67 seconds.

What Did We Learn?

It turns out that if speed is the ultimate goal, the classic two-thumb typing method might be your best bet. However, I did notice one advantage of swipe typing: it’s easier. The number of times you’re lifting and tapping your finger with swipe typing is considerably less than regular typing. Plus, swiping only takes one finger, whereas I needed both hands for the classic method. If ease of use is most important, swipe typing is the way to go. The good news is we always have both at our disposal, so use whichever method feels the best.