Emoji panel should open at the last used tab (don't force the predictions tab on me)

Please finally revert/fix it! I only use text emoticons (as emojis annoys me) and having to constantly switch to text-based mojis is annoying!

(you could also add option which tabs to display)

I found something interesting by accident yesterday.  There's the 'magic' prediction tab we're complaining about here, and the 'most recent' tab next to it.  If you leave it on 'most recent', it stays there.  So, this really does look like a bug. 

Unfortunately, this is the kind of thing I expected when MS came by and snatched them up.  Bugfixes take years, if they ever acknowledge bugs at all.  

Still looking for an alternative.  I tried gboard, and it's much better than it used to be, but I still have some issues with it.  I don't like the way it does predictions compared to swiftkey, and you can't make the keybard as small as you can with swiftkey.  If anyone has any suggestions, pls post them here. 

@Tim Gavin This behavior is not a bug. SwiftKey actually intended for this behavior. Ryan P from SwiftKey states the following from another post addressing this exact same issue, "Hello everyone,
based off testing and feedback, this is how the behavior now works.
If you open the emoji panel to anything besides "recents" the emoji panel will default open to the prediction tab.
If you keep the tab on recents, it will continue to open up on recents
Any other tab will result in the keyboard to open the predictions tab."
This other post can be found here
https://support.swiftkey.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360001268929--Fixed-in-7-0-2-Emoji-opening-up-to-prediction-panel-is-not-what-I-like?page=2#comments

OK, this is beyond, how to put i mildly... stupid? bonkers?

So we already have one random view (recent) and then another one forced upon us ("magic") - for cryin' out loud - there is this thing called "muscle memory" which highly favours when items are in the same place!

@Ryan P - please kindly at least make an option to disable it (can be in some 'super advanced' section after tapping million times on version or something like that)

@Wayne... ugh... typical Microsoft... "we've listened to customer feedback, and lookie, we went ahead and disregarded that.  Let's close the forum where ppl are complaining about that, they'll be happy now!" 

Well so much for "we've been listening to you"

I don't understand what is the problem here for the developers. If people don't want to be forced into the crystal ball then why in the world would they force that. Bad application development + zero views of what the consumers/customers want. Are the people who are developing/nodding these forums even using the same keyboard as we are. Super pissed of how this seemingly little thing is SO hard to fix. Ughh, maybe I'll just give up with this already. Feels like I'm wasting my time writing/complaining here.

Ryan P at least commented on the other thread I noted above, but this one he has completely ignored. I don't understand why because he's active on this forum, except to think that they have absolutely no intention to change back to the way it was and, therefore, absolutely no reason to comment here. I'm afraid we're screaming in a deserted forest for no one to hear. So, I'm also afraid that we need to accept this stupid behavior and poor customer service or dump SwiftKey for another one. For those who dump it, please post what you went with so others here can try it out.

Maybe we should all start new threads until we get responses from someone at the company.  

This article is a bit old, but has a few things in it I might give a try: 

https://beebom.com/swiftkey-alternatives-android-ios/

@Tim Gavin Thanks for the link. TouchPal actually came preinstalled with my ZTE Axon 7 but never used it because I was happy with Swiftkey. I'm trying it now and so far so good. That article is a bit out of date since Swype and Adaptxt are no longer in the playstore, but still helpful nonetheless. 👍

I've been using Flexsy. It doesn't have the swipe feature and it's prediction isn't as good BUT, it does not collect personal data and I'm finding that my battery life is significantly improved over SwiftKey! I have an HTC M8 that is almost 4 years old so before, I had to charge it twice a day but now, I can go the entire day without a charge. I never thought that switching keyboards would make that big of a difference on battery life!

@Martin any idea how it does with language switching? 

@Tim Gavin Sorry, can't help you there.

I just installed it, will give it a shot.  Thanks for the rec :) 

I'm trying it now also. Thanks!

IMO Gboard is the only alternative atm for multi lingual people... OR, just switch back to 7.0.6.27, that's ta last version that don't have this stupid behavior that everyone clearly hates, but @Ryan P, and Swiftkey just doesn't wanna knowledge...

fleksy is a bust, they don't do swype/flow typing yet, and their predictions are kinda sad.  Feels very unfinished, but they have potential if they're still in active development. 

I recommend getting older version (there are websites with completely fine/exact APK files that are distributed via play store so it's possible to go back to better version) :-)

When going back to older version how do you prevent it from auto updating without turning auto updates off in Google playstore?

I have auto updates switched off (because they are annoying) but you can do that on per-app basis - there are three dots in the upper-right corner of the application view in play-store and you can select there "skip auto update" for that particular application.

You can also search for "how to permanently stop app from updating by re-signing".  That's what I did.  Now the play store won't even recognize the old version. 

Thanks guys for showing me how to disable the auto update for a single app. I installed the last subversion of version 6, which was the one I liked the best. It works great and glad to have it back!

I think it's clear that Ryan P wanted everyone who wants to talk about this problem to go into this one thread so that he only needs to ignore this one thread. I don't think there is any intention of fixing this. Thus I will also have no intention to update from 7.0.6.

Yeah, I just installed the older version I liked best and I'm a happy camper now😊

another tip: if you have root and titanium backup you can un-link swiftkey from market so it won't be automatically updated nor show up in the list of updated packages! ;-)

I tried unlinking with TB but that doesn't last.  Within a couple of days it had updated.  You have to re-sign the app to really make it permanent.

@rellim and everyone who wants to downtowngrade:
Just uncheck "enable auto upgrade" in the Play Store, on the app page. It's in the upper right corner under the 3 dot menu. It will never update automatically after that. If you do a manual update of all your apps, there will be a pop-up asking you if you want to update it, just click cancel

@Rob K You are absolutely right. I uninstalled the stupid latest version of SwiftKey, installed the version I wanted, and unchecked the auto update for SwiftKey in the playstore and I'm totally happy now.

Still completely amazed how SwiftKey won't listen to us, but it actually doesn't matter anymore ☺️

Disappointed over SwiftKey. This change has annoyed me really much the last couple of months, reading that you changed from out of this post seems to be the way ppl wants it(including me) and then back again to the annoyance, and making the app that should be fast and effective, to now be ineffective really annoys someone who has been a user and paid for the app 5 years ago. Has I not found this topic, and the oppertunity to download the older version, I would've deleted SwiftKey from my phone.

My current solution:

Download and sideload the last APK which didn't have this "feature":

https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/swiftkey/swiftkey-keyboard/swiftkey-keyboard-7-0-6-27-release/#downloads

Go to Play Store app on your phone.

Select top-left "three stripes" menu, then "My Apps & Games".  Select "Installed" tab.  Scroll down to "Swiftkey Keyboard" and click on the name of the app to select it.  Select the top-right "three dots" menu, then un-tick "Enable auto-update".

You now have the version of Swiftkey without this feature and your auto-update setting won't overwrite it when they release the next incremental version.  Check back on the forums to see when they fix this, so you can re-tick "auto-update".