SwiftKey 4 Update Brings Flow and Flow Through Space Features Out Of Beta

SwiftKey Flow – Swipe-based gesture typing just like you saw earliest in Swype keyboard. 

SwiftKey Flow Through Space – Basically SwiftKey Flow without having to ever raise your finger. Yes, you can continuously swipe and the keyboard would predict the entire sentence. 

Back in December 2012, SwiftKey released beta apks for their popular keyboard app with new features in the work – Flow and Flow Through Space. Through an update earlier today, the app is branded to SwiftKey 4, in which the two Flow features are integrated.

If you purchased SwiftKey 3 before, just update the app and the features would be available in the upgraded SwiftKey 4 app. If you haven’t purchased for whatever reason, there wouldn’t be a better time than now to do so (well actually there is – wait for promotion!), but that’s not the point. I mean the keyboard is finally complete, although there are a couple of things I need to get used to personally because of enabling the Flow features. For example, I’ve grown so used to swiping left to delete a word, instead of tapping or holding the back key. Now that won’t work if you’ve enabled the new Flow features; it’d predict a word if you swiped left.

Other than that small gripe, there is nothing much to complain about this update as the prediction system on SwiftKey has already been the leader in the keyboard battle for a long time and the integration of the two features is just icing on the cake for SwiftKey 4. If you’re a first-time user, there’s no harm in trying out the trial version and see if you find it worthy to purchase.

SwiftKey 4 Play Store Link 

SwiftKey 4 Trial Version

What’s New in SwiftKey 4

Overeating Habits Could Grow Out Of A Culture

Food for thought – while growing up, were you told that eating three meals a day was a norm? Were you given the notion that you should eat at certain timings (e.g. 8 am, 12 pm, 6 pm) even when you weren’t hungry? Were you encouraged to eat a lot, or eat a variety of things (meat, different vegetables, rice)? Were you told to finish everything on your plate even if it meant too much for you? Were you scolded (beaten in extreme cases) because you refused food? Were you worried that you’d get sick/pass out if you ate much less than you used to?

If any of the aforementioned sounds familiar to you, your dietary choices could be greatly interfered by a cultural conditioning you grew up with. Is it impossible to shake it off? Nope, but it takes more than embracing change and a great deal of discipline to make it happen. The question is do you need to? Of course, unless you have a weight problem like I do, you don’t need to look any further into it.

Rant: Laugh Tracks Are Lame And Annoying

Even with an annoying laugh track, The Big Bang Theory is still a favorite

Laugh track is a thing of the past. Really. The first TV show with a laugh track dates way back to 1950 and the said show did so poorly that it had to be cancelled not long after. Let’s face it; no matter how successful a sitcom is, it doesn’t nullify the fact that laugh tracks in the background are extremely annoying.

Featuring a laugh track in a TV show doesn’t automatically make it funny. It’s no rocket science. Why would the audience need cues to laugh? If the jokes are so obscure or require so many references to understand, they aren’t really good jokes anyway. In what way is it helpful that the laugh track reminds the audience to laugh because they cannot understand the joke or worse they don’t find it funny? Humor is highly subjective by the way. It makes no sense to me that the viewers would laugh at a plot because the producers think it is supposed to be funny when it’s really not. Lame!

I don’t have any working knowledge about TV production nor do I personally know someone who does, so my point here would strictly be from a viewer’s perspective. I doubt anyone would like to go strongly against my opinion here. Of course, I am aware of the numerous studies stating that laugh tracks do work (that explains why they’re still here today). The underlying point of these studies is that laugh tracks make people feel as though they were watching a show with a bunch of other people in a studio or a comedy club and that in a psychological standpoint,  such an (fake) “environment” would encourage people to laugh more freely. *rolls eyes*

That said, it’s not likely that laugh tracks would be totally gone in the near future, with highly successful shows such as The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother still featuring them. Even older cult favorites such as Seinfeld and Friends had gained monumental successes with laugh tracks on, so I don’t really have a solid case against laugh tracks here. But it doesn’t mean that laugh tracks are great or even remotely useful; maybe people just choose to ignore them because the shows are truly great, which is what really matters anyway.

If the success of Modern Family is any indication, a laugh track isn’t necessary

I am not really a sitcom nut. The only sitcoms I’ve watched so far are The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, 30 Rock, Modern Family and Arrested Development. Each of them offers a unique sense of humor that appeals to me greatly but the first two sitcoms feature laugh tracks while the rest don’t. When things are put into perspective like that, it makes watching sitcoms with laugh tracks more unbearable now because I’ve subconsciously developed a slight contempt for TBBT and HIMYM, although I still love them. My point is – if Modern Family and Arrested Development (and many others) could make it work so successfully without using laugh tracks, surely laugh tracks aren’t an integral part to make a show work (funny, for that matter).

Laugh tracks should go, definitely; it’s only a matter of time. Over 60 years since the conception of laugh tracks, I believe it’s about time TV producers move on without these pre-recorded, lame laughing sounds. Hearing laugh tracks constantly throughout a show is like having someone to sit beside and nag you every few seconds to laugh. Who would love that?

Rolling back to Android 4.1.2 (Galaxy S2)

Almost a month ago, I wrote a raving review on Android 4.2. In the post, I commented on how important it is for Android to have these incremental updates and even praised the bunch of features introduced in the new iteration of Jelly Bean. However, after a month of using 4.2 as a daily driver, I am afraid I can’t say the same about it today.

In fact, I was already annoyed by a few bugs 2 weeks ago but had been preoccupied with a lot of stuff, so I didn’t find enough reason to roll back to 4.1. Plus doing a fresh install is always a painful experience for me. I typically have about 100+ apps installed on my device at any time and re-installing and re-configuring the majority of them is extremely tedious.

Of course, I’d like to point out that what I mention in this post is by no means conclusive and the issues may be device-specific or even subjective. Or maybe not.

Deal-Breakers:

1. Battery Issues

2. Screen of Deaths and crashes

3. Less responsive than 4.1

Battery Issues

This is a deal-breaker for most people, I am sure. But I am not one who blindly complains about battery life while doing everything wrong with charging and maintaining. By “battery issues”, I don’t just mean poorer battery life but the fuel gauge is completely messed up. This is no baseless gripe. I always practice the habit of keeping the battery level between 40-80% and only charge it fully once or twice a week. In Android 4.2, the battery fuel gauge acts up no matter how much I’ve conditioned the battery. In extreme cases, the device would auto-reboot and the battery % would drop all the way down to 8% from initially 60+ % or so before the reboot. I am sure this is nothing new to the community of Android flashers. Such a thing doesn’t really happen when I was using Android 4.1.2, except once or twice when I really mis-calibrated the battery. Also, battery drain is humongous. To put things into perspective, same number of apps, same usage, same kernel, I get 10 hours of standby + at least 2 hours of screen time on Android 4.1. On 4.2? 7 hours of standby + 1.5 hour of screen time if I am lucky. The standby drain is far too obvious and do I even need to mention the screen-on drain?

Screen  of Deaths and Crashes

This part annoys me to no end. Really. Imagine scrolling through your contacts, whatsapp conversations, tweets, and the screen just went ice cold. There are also stability issues with the camera and gallery app that have no proper fixes. Although much later builds are claimed to have the problem fixed, I have been more annoyed than impressed to give 4.2 another shot. Also as I mentioned earlier, those random reboots could also mess up the battery %, making it very difficult to get a clear picture of realistically how much % is left.

Responsiveness

This is purely from a user-experience standpoint. I am very very particular about device performance especially in terms of responsiveness. Not that I am saying I must have a ROM that is lag-free but that if there’s a lag, even a very minor one, I notice immediately without fail. On numerous occasions, 4.2 gave me lags while switching from one app to another, while typing, while launching apps. This wasn’t really a deal breaker for me when I was using 4.2 for over 3 weeks but when I rolled back to 4.1.2 last night, the difference was almost striking.

To sum up, again I am by no means bashing Android 4.2 or the work developers have put into the Cyanogenmod project to make it possible for us to get a taste of 4.2 so early. Quite the opposite actually; I have tremendous respect for the devs who put in time and effort to make it work for us, even when they have no proper support, such as source code or documentation whatsoever to work with from the official channels. I am just saying that I’ve had a much better experience using Android 4.1.2 than 4.2 and that I won’t likely return to 4.2 anytime soon. If you have a different experience or if you have any advice on how to make 4.2 work perfectly for you (especially in performance and battery departments), please kindly do share!

Instagram’s Privacy “Outcry”

If you don’t trust a service, don’t use it. Ha, life goes on for everyone else.

First of all, about my stand on Facebook and Instagram – they provide you free services, so they have to do “something else” to make money, i.e. advertising. How else do you think they make money? Really, they are social networking companies. NOT social charities. Companies that don’t make money are BAD and no one would give a crap about them.

Second, the mass media blew the shit way out of proportion that it’s impossible to save the dumb public from spreading said false information even further. Don’t get what I am saying? It means you haven’t read articles with sanity and ACTUAL information such as this one from the Verge and this one.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/20/3790312/instagram-reverts-to-original-terms-of-service-after-public-outcry

What can we learn from this? That most people don’t do research after hearing a news story from ONE source or worse from a friend or a friend’s friend. It also didn’t help that I remembered seeing at least 4 or 5 major sites (that are supposed to be professional) spreading the false information they believed was correct, in a self-righteous tone too. The keywords? “INSTAGRAM WILL SELL YOUR PHOTOS, AT WILL”. No. I am serious; it screamed exactly like that when the news broke. After all, it kinda makes me wonder if that was really what Instagram wanted? Create a fuzz with some obscure language with regards to privacy, cause the public outcry, and then revert back to the old terms, which really benefit Instagram, NOT the uninformed users.

After a while, I wouldn’t want to bother offering my view on Instagram to others anymore. This is way over and done with. The same people who complaint during this outcry would probably never find out that the old terms of service were really more intrusive than the supposed new ones, which they hated so much. Ironic huh?

The Trouble with “Doing What You Love”

This post has been sitting in the Draft folder for over 3 months. I jotted down fragmented ideas as and when they came but never really found the link to connect them all for a blog post. Somehow, I’ve managed to do so today, and so here goes.

At some point in your life, you would find the discrepancy between how you envision your life would turn out and how it actually does. In some perspective, it’s considered “growing up”, while others believe it’s a transient identity crisis (quarter-life, mid-life). For those who never go through this (for better or worse), good for you, I guess?

When you get to the point of being unsure what you want to do with your life, typically you would seek advice from people you can trust or read self-help books to find answer or study your idol’s biography to find some inspirations. And more often than not you’d hear perhaps the most corny phrases ever from different people, such as “follow your heart”, “follow your passion”, “do what you like”, “do what you want”. As much as these phrases form the fundamental basis of “being happy” in life, they couldn’t be more vague.

Now why do I mention there’s trouble with the phrase “doing what you love”? Sure it’s a generally good advice for anyone struggling to define who they are. But what I see most of the times is that what people love to do doesn’t translate into something that adds value to their lives. I feel that the advice is vague and corny at best. Why? It doesn’t mention whether what you love is in the sense of a hobby or what you love is in the sense of a professional aspiration.

Of course, it’s the perfect situation when you can turn your hobby into something you can do for your whole life and provide for yourself. But let’s be honest here: how many people do you think have the mentality to make it happen? Or how many of them are in the position to try and fail so many times? Or simply how many of them are exactly sure that’s really what they want? If what you love to do doesn’t have any practical value to your life, it’d be a waste of time to pursue that. What I mean by “practical value” is to ask yourself whether you can become so good that you can turn it into a profession. If you don’t want to even invest time in trying that out, maybe you don’t really “love” to do that after all?

Often times people get confused between pleasurable activities and things that provide a sense of fulfillment (in terms of professional aspirations). It’s not an either-or thing; they co-exist. For example, if you love singing but you don’t see yourself becoming as good as a singer and doing it for a long time, or you simply don’t feel like dumping all your energy into it, maybe you shouldn’t be encouraged to “follow your passion” and become a singer. Surely you love singing, but you love it as a hobby, something fitting as a leisure activity. An investor once asked me after I made a pitch for this business plan competition: “if you love your idea so much that you believe it’ll work, would you be willing to sell everything you have to make it happen?” I couldn’t give him a straight answer, but I think he got his answer.

My point is this – you should not confuse a pleasurable hobby and a professional aspiration, which is why I mentioned previously how “doing what you love” is very vague in and of itself. There’s gotta be something out there, apart from your hobby (another area/field/thing that you’re interested in, which gives you fulfillment) that has the potential of becoming your value-added aspiration to life. Go and cultivate it!

I think Mark Cuban put it best when he wrote

“If you really want to know where you destiny lies, look at where you apply your time.

Let me make this as clear as possible

1. When you work hard at something you become good at it.

2. When you become good at doing something, you will enjoy it more.

3. When you enjoy doing something, there is a very good chance you will become passionate or more passionate about it

4. When you are good at something, passionate and work even harder to excel and be the best at it, good things happen.

Don’t follow your passions, follow your effort. It will lead you to your passions and to success, however you define it.” (Source: Mark Cuban’s blog)

These are the advice I find plausible and do my best to follow since I read them. Many people would disagree, noting “if you are not spending time on what you love, aren’t you forcing yourself to do something you don’t like, and hence lead to ever greater unhappiness”. It’s not true, simply because you will never know if you like something until you try it; by “try it” I mean consistently doing something for a long period of time until you can decide if you really love or hate something. Chances are there are more things about you that you have yet to discover just because you’re not trying new things. Good things in life, very much like good relationships, come after eliminating all that you don’t want or like. You simply don’t get it right the first or second time. What I am trying to say is that you do not necessarily have to stick with something in life because you feel that it’s the right thing to do or you’ve been at it for so long it’d feel like a waste to dump it. Your dreams at age 18 may not necessarily be the same as your dreams at age 25; they evolve all the time. The best thing you can do when you’re lost is to cultivate good habits and work ethics that will get you through any types of challenges ahead.

Would like to sign off the post with my favorite speech of all-time:

Cyanogenmod 10.1 (CM 10.1) aka Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean on Samsung Galaxy S2 GT I9100

Known Issues – CM 10.1 for Galaxy S2 Intl GT I9100 (Source)

• Audio: not all features implemented yet
• USB: slow ums transfer speed
• Camera: recording effects broken
• FM Radio: unsupported, will probably never be
• TV Out: unsupported, will never work (proprietary, undocumented)
• NFC: no support on GT-I9100P is missing

CM 10.1 Official Nightlies – XDA Thread

Cherrypicked CM variant by MCM (which I am using) – XDA Thread

After weeks of hesitation deliberation, I finally decided that it’s time to move to Android 4.2 (CM 10.1) and not look back. Usually I would always be among the first to try every time a new ROM is ready for flashing; I guess my flashaholism is fading, which is perhaps a good news for my OCD. Regardless, I couldn’t resist after reading many raving reviews that confirm CM 10.1 to be a daily driver material on Galaxy S2.

Android 4.2 is still called Jelly Bean and is in fact an incremental update to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. The changes are rather subtle and definitely not many, but overall the under-the-hood improvements make my old Galaxy S2 much less “dated”.

What’s New in Android 4.2

Lockscreen Widgets

This is perhaps my least favorite feature in Android 4.2. I understand the convenience of being able to scan through emails, texts, to-do lists, or basically any “available” information you would like on the lockscreen itself, but it’s just not for me partly because I don’t like information to be all over my lockscreen and also because I believe in the minimal usage of widgets even on my homescreens, so I am not a fan of this. Still it’s a very nifty feature if you’ve been expecting something like that from Android.

Swiping right to access camera right from the lockscreen

Swiping left to add as many pages of widgets as you wish

Widget options | I am sure more will be added soon

Removing a widget/page is just like you would a normal widget

Quick Settings Panel 

If you are a long-time CM user, this feature would probably not appeal to you too. Maybe for people who first got their hands on a Nexus device, this would be a very handy feature but we CM users have this in the form of “Widget Buttons” for ages and really couldn’t ask for more. At first I thought Google did it again with awkward gesture (remember 2-finger gesture to expand notifications in 4.1?) but it turns out that you can access this quick settings panel either by pulling down the notification with 2 fingers or pulling down the notification bar from near the right edge; the latter is definitely much less awkward to use. I forgot to mention that you can access the quick settings also by tapping the icon at the top right corner of the notification area; the icon will flip between your notifications and quick settings.

Quick Settings Panel 

CM’s Widget Buttons

Native “swype” feature in the stock keyboard

Swype had it for a really long time, however, because of the on again off again support and availability from Swype, many competitors have started to implement it into their apps, such as SwiftKey Flow and Kii. Of course, Google’s stock Android keyboard finally features it natively too. The swiping gesture is very smooth and easy to use, but it’s virtually impossible for me to leave SwiftKey 3 because of its incredible word prediction system, so if you aren’t a fan of any third party keyboard, Android 4.2 stock keyboard could be an awesome alternative in this tight keyboard battle on Android.

Android 4.2 Keyboard with native gesture typing

New Stock Camera App

Since we’re on the camera topic, I have to make something very clear – Photosphere would NOT work in this ROM or in fact in any other device that is not a Nexus (well there are workarounds but things are broken, so I wouldn’t even try). You would have heard from a lot of people’s raving about “Photosphere” feature when Nexus 4 was introduced. It’s kind of like an advanced panorama feature which takes err “spherical” photos (check them out on Google+, really awesome stuff).

Anyway back to the camera topic, the stock camera app receives a UI overhaul and now it also comes with built-in filters (just like those on Instagram). A lot of things still work the same as the camera on Android 4.1 (swiping right to view pic, swiping up to delete, etc)

New Camera UI on 4.2

Camera, Video and good ol Panorama is still available

Filmstrip View

Looks familiar? Yep, Instagram-inspired native filters 

Google Now

Finally, you can’t talk about Jelly Bean without mentioning Google Now. Arguably deemed as the future of mobile technology, Google Now has become even more intelligent, making use of the ever-expanding Google’s Knowledge Graph to provide contextual recommendations tailored to each user. In other words, your phone is learning every movement/behavior of yours each day to serve you better. Newly included in this version (that I have noticed) are pedometer and research topics. Pedometer uses your location history and motion sensor of your phone to determine how many kilometers you’ve walked in a month and show you a card with that data at the end of each month. Research topics show cards related to what you’ve just searched on Google and recommend you articles to read. It now also shows Google+ birthdays. A lot of things aren’t working in where I live as of now, such as flight information, package tracking and others. Or maybe I haven’t fed Google enough data just yet. Regardless, Google Now’s contextual awareness makes it among the best mobile technologies introduced in recent years. Oh and if you’re a privacy freak, please don’t ever use Google Now. Save yourself and people around you some lame, pointless complaints!

Notes

– Multi-user support is only available on tablets.

– Battery life is incredible with Siyah kernel. Unless placebo is in place, it’s the most power-efficient CM ROM I’ve used.

– There isn’t any major difference between official CM nightlies and MCM’s builds I am flashing now. In the near future, all the open-source HAL that the CM team has been working on will be completely implemented and of course all variants of CM would also be synced with the sources. So it’s just a matter of personal preference.h

– I use Siyah kernel version 4. Somehow it gives me a better battery life than Siyah 5, although I use BLN in both kernels and Siyah 5 has BLNWW (Back Light Notification Without Wakelock). If you decide to flash MCM’s ROM, the Siyah kernel is available in the MCM’s thread itself. Don’t take it from the original blog – it will get you into a bootloop.

– Media scanner continues to create wakelocks in my experience. I use this app, Rescan Media ROOT to manually run the media scanner only after I add new pictures, songs, etc.

That’s it for Android 4.2 on Galaxy S2. I’ve to say this – these little changes are huge for this platform. Read through the known issues and if you’re fine with them, flash ahead! Or if you believe in the official updates (being better) and want to wait for them, be my guest (Hint: you might never get them).

UPDATE on the Photosphere (January 8, 2013) – Thanks Alfred for the heads up that a flashable zip for Android 4.2 camera allows S2 to enjoy Photosphere feature. To save you the trouble of searching, download the zip here. Just flash it in CWM and if there’s any FC issue, wipe dalvik cache & fix permissions. I’ve already tried and it works fine; no FC or whatsoever. Note that after flashing this, you’ll have 2 stock camera and 2 identical gallery apps respectively in your drawer; one with photosphere, one not.

Android App Review – Falcon Pro for Twitter

Click on the image for Play Store link

A few months ago, out of curiosity and determination to find out which Twitter app suits my tweeting needs the most, I took about 4 days to try every prominent third party Twitter client out there on Android to find myself an answer. Although I rated UberSocial as the top Twitter client in terms of functionality and user interface at the end of the post, I actually didn’t switch away from Tweetcaster Pro which I had been using for a really long time.

When Falcon Pro came out recently, I have seen some raving reviews but didn’t have the time to try it out until 2 days ago. It’s hard to sound objective here and I am not going to, because I am going to stick with it until anyone could come up with something better. No, seriously. It’s “the” best Twitter app I have tried on Android so far. And I am finally really switching away from Tweetcaster Pro as well as Official Twitter for Android; in the last 2 days I have been exclusively using Falcon Pro and man does it feel crazy smooth and look gorgeous at only USD 0.99.

Timeline

I heard that theme support is coming soon, so if you don’t like the black look, fret not, you’ll be able to customize it soon enough.

Long pressing a tweet would bring up typical tweet options such as “Reply”, “Retweet”, “Favorite”, “Share”, and more options.

If you tap on more options, these are the pretty standard stuff you’d see. Of course, “delete” button only works on your own tweets. The rest of them are quite self-explanatory. Muting users has kind of been a pain in the ass for me right now. I have to go through one tweet after another to bring up this Mute menu; there isn’t a single centralized list from which I could choose whom I want to mute. But well, the annoyance is really minimal here. You can however clear the list of Muted users with just one click from within the Settings, should you decide to unmute everybody.

The “RT” function is worth a mention here. Usually in Twitter clients, there are two types of RTs. The native RT and “RT with comments”, and in most apps, there are two separate options to choose from when you are about to RT a particular tweet. However, in Falcon Pro, there is only one RT option and if you tap it and send the RT as is, it’d be a native RT, but if you modify or add anything to the tweet, it would become a MT, which comes in the form of a separate tweet “bla bla RT @richxiong …………”, so you kinda have to remember and get familiar with this especially if you RT a lot.

Timeline Navigation

Swiping left and right doesn’t lead you to different columns such as Mentions, Messages on Falcon Pro; for that you have to tap on the icon on top or use the sidebar. Swiping right, however, would bring you a neat little sidebar showing your Account info as well as different tabs to access your Timeline, Mentions, DM, RT, Favorites, Search and Settings. By the way, if you are still using an Android phone with capacitive buttons, the Menu button doesn’t have any functionality in this app. Things such as Settings and More Options are accessible only on the UI itself.

Swiping left would bring up the similar sidebar, except that the options are quick access to your Twitter Lists, Saved Searches and Trending Topics. It’s really very convenient especially if you browse the lists and use the search function a lot.

Internal Browser

Lastly, if you’re like me who uses Twitter mainly as a source of news and information, the feature to load articles in Falcon Pro itself would make you feel right at home. Of course, if you don’t have unlimited data or simply don’t want this loading to drain your meager precious battery life, you can customize whether to load only on Wifi or on both Wifi and 3G networks. Despite a plethora of features available, Falcon Pro’s performance is extremely smooth and I have not had a single crash or error so far. It’s definitely worth every single cent you’d pay for, folks!

P.S. If I have to mention just one gripe, clicking on a profile picture leads you to the browser instead of loading it within app. Erm I am not the only one who clicks on profile pictures, right?!

And if you’re browsing tweets in a list, for example, the only way for you to get back to Timeline or anywhere else is to swipe to the other sidebar to select the options. There have been many times when I naturally hit the back key, which kicked me out of the app completely.

[APK] SwiftKey Flow Beta Available For Downloads Now

Download SwiftKey Flow Beta NOW

When Android 4.2 launched with a revamped AOSP keyboard featuring “Swype” feature, I, for a brief moment, thought SwiftKey 3 was in danger, well kind of. For starters, SwiftKey 3 still has the best word prediction and layout on Android that is totally out of this world, which I would not trade with any other features. But I did check out the AOSP 4.2 keyboard and I have to say it’s pretty neat and posts a rather serious threat to SwiftKey 3. Then I saw the announcement of SwiftKey Flow coming soon and I got very excited because after paying for an app, you wish it would stay on top of its game no matter what, i.e. excel in every area possible.

Now that the Flow Beta apk is made public, I can totally forget about keeping AOSP 4.2 keyboard. I read it before that it is going to be an add-on feature to the existing SwiftKey 3 but it seems like installing the apk in the source link would actually produce a new input method and I am guessing it will function as an add-on only after it comes out of Beta. So for now, even if you’re not a purchased user, you will be able to use the Beta for a period of time and decide whether or not to pay for it. Just install the apk as you would any other apk and follow the instructions to set it up. Enjoy the best keyboard feature with the best prediction on Android; it’s absolutely brilliant.

Kobe Bryant hits 30,000 career points, joining the ELITE club

Kobe Bryant finally did it – 30,000 career points. It’s an incredible achievement considering he’s joining the ELITE club of hall-of-famers such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain, while being the youngest player to do so. Of course, despite the success, he has received his fair share of criticisms throughout his career, most of them stupid and some of them totally incomprehensible.

You see, after 17 years in the NBA with 14 All-Star starts, 14 All NBA First Team selections, 12 All Defensive First Team Selections, 5 championships, 4 All-Star MVPs, 2 Final MVPs and 1 Regular Season MVP, any arguments or criticisms, I mean ANYTHING AT ALL, made against Kobe Bryant would not ever make sense anymore. Seriously, name me at least one or two players from his era that even came close to him in terms of achievements and capabilities. T-Mac?! Allen Iverson?! Ray Allen?! Paul Pierce?! Vince Carter?! I can go on but you get the drift.

The video easily brought me to tears while making me grin like an idiot at the same time. Non-basketball fans will never understand this. Kobe Bryant has been my hero ever since I started watching him in 1999 – the relentless spirit, the super competitive nature, the formidable killer instinct and work ethics that are simply unparalleled. I am going to be extremely sad when he retires after the next season but nothing will ever take away what he is in my mind – the most amazing basketball player to have ever played in the NBA. Thank you Hornets for trading Kobe right after drafting him. Thank you Lakers, for giving Kobe the most amazing platform to shine. And finally, thank you, Kobe, for being a huge part of my childhood and teenage years.