Swype is a gesture-based keyboard for iPhone. Using the iPhone keyboard

Quite some time has passed since it became possible to change the standard keyboard in iOS to a third-party application. In today's episode, we'll look at what keyboards have appeared during this time and how well they work.

Swipe

I'm a big fan of the Swype keyboard on Android, using it on every smartphone I've tested, and for the most part I had no complaints about it. When Apple announced support for third-party keyboards, the first thing I thought was “finally you can use Swype!” For those who don't know: the main feature of Swype is entering text using strokes, you move your finger from one letter to another, and the keyboard itself understands what word you entered. This input method, in my opinion, is much more convenient and faster than traditional taps.

Swype on Android has many other advantages: support for various themes, saving a dictionary, detailed settings for appearance and behavior (for example, reducing the time you hold a button to call up additional characters). What of all this was transferred to iOS? Almost nothing. The keyboard does not have dictionary synchronization, additional symbols are not visible on the keyboard itself (they are available with a long press, but they are not visible on the buttons themselves), the prediction work leaves much to be desired. I don’t know what the developers of the iOS version were doing, but in the three months since the release of iOS 9, almost nothing has changed in the keyboard, except for the appearance of paid themes.

App Store Link

Yandex.Keyboard

I once complained on Twitter that the standard iOS keyboard has very inconvenient access to emojis; they are a separate layout, so if emojis are turned on, then when you change the language you will periodically “stumble” on them. Readers recommended paying attention to Yandex.Keyboard, which has a separate layout for emoji.

Yandex itself positions its keyboard as a convenient solution with the ability to add any attachments, be it your location, a funny GIF or a photo from an iPhone. The keyboard also provides quick translation from one language to another. The company has a nice official video demonstrating the keyboard capabilities described above.

As for more traditional functions, among them I would like to note the convenient switching of languages by swiping left and right; you also quickly have access to a layout with numbers (this saves a lot of time!). The “123” button opens additional characters, and “…” makes it possible to quickly send emoji, pictures, your own drawing, location, or translate a piece of text into another language.

Among the disadvantages, I would like to highlight the lack of input using strokes and calling up additional symbols by long pressing. And, of course, I would like to see a period and a comma in the main layouts! But overall, the keyboard left a positive impression and is at least worth a try.

App Store Link

TouchPal

I start to like Touchpal literally from the first launch. You immediately notice two rows of additional characters available for quick input. By the way, if you swipe vertically on a letter, the second symbol will immediately appear.

Of all the keyboards, TouchPal has the most accurate stroke input, and the app very rarely makes mistakes.

On the top panel there are buttons for quickly accessing settings and switching to the emoji layout. Among the settings, the “night mode” button deserves special attention; when pressed, the brightness of the keyboard block decreases so as not to strain the eyes so much.

In my opinion, TouchPal has the best keyboard of all those presented in today’s selection; it will suit both those who like to “tap” and those who prefer to enter with strokes. It has a good dictionary and predictive input system, quick access to settings and additional characters.

App Store Link

SwiftKey

Another well-known Android keyboard, which in fact turns out to be one of the best in terms of its combination of functionality and stability. SwiftKey supports stroke input (and it recognizes words perfectly), has large dictionaries and a prediction system, access to additional characters is called by holding a period, while 0.1 seconds is enough to call other punctuation marks. Among the shortcomings, I would highlight only the absence of buttons with numbers that can be called by holding down the keys.

App Store Link

Go Keyboard

I remember this keyboard very well from the days of Android three years ago, I even wrote about it once, the more interesting it was to see what Go Dev did for iOS.

The standard keyboard installed in the iPhone and iPad often does not meet the user's requirements, and he has to turn to third-party solutions. In this article, MacDigger looked at 8 interesting, popular and simply good iOS keyboards that you should pay attention to.

SwiftKey

SwiftKey is considered the smartest keyboard for iPhone and iPad. The difficult process of typing text on the touch screen is helped by auto-correction and predictive text input in 60 languages.

The keyboard in SwiftKey for iOS works almost the same as on Google phones, where it successfully settled several years earlier. From the moment of installation, the program remembers what a person writes and automatically suggests favorite phrases and expressions in written speech. According to user reviews, it seems that the keyboard “reads” thoughts and predicts almost entire sentences literally from the first words.

Word Flow

Late last month, Microsoft released the Word Flow keyboard ported from Window Phone to iOS. The main distinguishing feature of Microsoft's proprietary solution is the presence of a special function that allows you to quickly type text on the go, holding the device with one hand. By switching to Arc mode, users can either slide their finger across the fan-shaped keyboard without lifting it from the screen or simply type on the go. The buttons are angled to make them easier to press while holding the iPhone with one hand.

With the exception of the one-handed mode, Word Flow is almost identical to the WP version. Users can quickly enter words suggested by the program, insert emoji, and type text using swipes. To experience Word Flow on iOS, you must have an iPhone 5s or later smartphone and a US App Store account. Microsoft promises to release an international version of the keyboard in the near future.

Flexy

Fleksy can give a head start to most players on the market, because to successfully type text here it is absolutely not necessary to even hit the right letters. Literally, taking a word of five letters and typing all five incorrectly, the user gets the desired result. For Fleksy, it doesn’t make much difference how many errors are made when typing - the main thing is that the number of letters matches the desired word, and their location is relatively close to the approximate ones. Another feature of the keyboard is the gesture system, thanks to which you can type text very quickly.

Minuum

The creators of Minuum (299 rubles) solved the problem of typing in an original way - they took a regular QWERTY keyboard and “flattened” it vertically, arranging the characters almost in one row: Q a Z W s X E d C. With this arrangement, the usual position of the letters will be preserved , and the lack of information about the vertical position of the letter and the inevitable inaccuracies are quite easy to compensate with the help of dictionaries and recognition algorithms that have become almost standard on any smartphone. If you need an exact set, for example in the case of passwords and URLs, then the desired letter or number can be selected in an enlarged fragment that instantly appears when touched.

TextExpander 3

The developers of the TextExpander utility (379 rubles), designed to make text input on Apple smartphones and tablets productive, have released the TextExpander 3 + custom keyboard application. The release includes a new keyboard for iOS that lets you type hundreds of characters in seconds.

The principle of operation of TextExpander is to automatically replace the entered short text with a larger fragment. For example, you can specify that when you type the characters “sss”, the program replaces this combination with a long message, for example, “The director is currently on a business trip. You can contact us with this question by calling 222-33-44.” And if you enter the sequence of letters “ddate” into the text, the current date will appear.

Slash Keyboard

No third-party keyboard for iOS has ever become popular enough to replace the standard one. The developers of Slash Keyboard went the other way, creating a keyboard that makes it possible to interact with third-party services - Foursquare, YouTube, Giphy, Spotify, Twitter, Google Maps and others. To access the service, you need to enter “/service_name” and the desired request. For example, the title of a song on Spotify or the title of an article on Wikipedia.

Gboard

Gboard is Google's proprietary keyboard for iOS devices. It integrates the company's search services, as well as GIF images and emoji. Gboard offers predictive typing, spell checking, GIFs, emoji, and search, which lets you find and share information without switching to other apps. Among other things, Gboard supports the Swype technology, popular on Android smartphones, which allows you to enter text in one motion without lifting your finger from the keyboard.

The application has already been released in the App Store, but is currently only available in the American store. The company promised to release a version for Russian users during 2016.

Giphy Keys

The largest library of GIFs provides iOS device users with a virtual keyboard that allows you to send animated GIFs from any application, including instant messengers, Snapchat, iMessage and social networks. It provides a search for pictures and memes for any occasion, as well as a section with the most popular “GIFs”. To insert an image, you just need to tap on the picture you like, after which it will be copied to the clipboard.

SwiftKey

SwiftKey is considered the smartest keyboard for iPhone and iPad. The difficult process of typing text on the touch screen is helped by auto-correction and predictive text input in 60 languages.

Word Flow

Flexy

Minuum

TextExpander 3

Slash Keyboard

Gboard

The application has already been released in the App Store, but is currently only available in the American store. The company promised to release a version for Russian users during 2016.

Giphy Keys

Apple's iOS 8 operating system contains much more innovation than the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus gadgets. Significantly expanded developer capabilities allow smartphones to be used in new ways, giving the impression that these models are significantly better than the iPhone 5S. However, it is worth noting that if you install iOS 8 on a previous generation gadget, it will not be much inferior to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

iOS 8 has introduced a huge number of new features such as widgets, export panels, Metal technology, Health Kit and much more. In addition, the new Apple operating system has a predictive text input function, QuickType technology, and most importantly, ability to use alternative keyboards from third party developers.

We offer a selection of the best alternative keyboards for iOS 8, which for the most part have worked well on the Android OS and have been ported to the new Apple operating system.

SwiftKey keyboard for iOS.

Considered one of the smartest keyboards for Android gadgets, it uses a predictive text input system and auto-correction in 60 languages. SwiftKey works no different on iOS 8; from the moment you install the app on your iPhone or iPad, the utility remembers everything you enter and automatically suggests the most frequently used words or phrases. The most popular comment is that users feel like the keyboard is "guessing" their thoughts and correctly suggesting entire sentences from the first word they enter.

Fleksy keyboard for iOS.

Fleksy is another popular keyboard, ported from Android to iOS 8, which has a large army of fans. The peculiarity of the application is that you don’t even have to enter a word correctly, making a mistake in each letter, the main thing is that their number and location approximately coincide with the correct word . The Fleksy keyboard has a built-in gesture system that allows you to type text at high speed. A nice feature of the application is the ability to apply different color schemes and change the size of the work area.

Swype keyboard for iOS.

An equally popular keyboard for Android and iOS 8, the principle of entering words with Swype is that the user needs to slide across the screen from letter to letter and lift his finger only between different words. The application has a built-in error correction algorithm and a linguistic model of a specific language; in addition, there is an option for predictive text input (suggesting a word based on the first letters entered). In the Swype keyboard for iOS, the main emphasis is placed on a module that analyzes the trajectory of finger movement across the screen and the word search system in the application base.

Nintype or Hipjot keyboard (keyboard + notes) for iOS.

Nintype / Hipjot is a similar keyboard in terms of input method to the Swype keyboard, but the developers went even further in technology and improved it by making it possible to use gestures with both hands at the same time, which significantly increases the speed of typing. So the developers claim that if the average speed of typing words on the Swype keyboard is 50-60 words per minute, then the author of Nintype / Hipjot managed to type 120 words per minute, and the average user is able to type at a speed of 70-90 words per minute. The downside of the Nintype/Hipjot keyboard is that it only supports English for now.

Keyboard KuaiBoard (first name QuickBoard) for iOS.

The KuaiBoard keyboard allows you to choose from three different text input techniques on iOS gadgets: TextBoard, MeBoard and LocationBoard. Each method is based on automation of the most repetitive actions, for example, you can add buttons with the most frequently used words and phrases to the screen; in addition, this function can be used for large text blocks (templates for replies to letters, contacts, and much more).

Minuum keyboard for iOS.

The Minuum keyboard is very different from other designs, primarily in its appearance. The standard QWERTY layout has a vertically compressed layout, which significantly reduces the size of the keyboard itself on the screen. This feature is perfect for new smartphone models with a large screen: iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. With such a compressed layout of the Minuum keyboard, the number of errors will be significantly greater, so this problem is compensated for using dictionaries and text recognition algorithms.

TextExpander keyboard for iOS.

Another keyboard with an original operating principle designed to automate the process of entering text as quickly as possible. The main method in the TextExpander keyboard is the "autocorrect" function, i.e. The utility allows you to create large dictionaries with abbreviations of words, phrases and large pieces of text, for example, after entering “tyvm”, the phrase will be automatically replaced with “Thank you very much”. It will take time to create a database of templates, but subsequently entering text using TextExpander can be the fastest and most convenient.

TouchPal keyboard for iOS.

The TouchPal keyboard allows you to choose from two methods for entering words. The first is called TouchPal Curve, words must be entered by moving your finger across the screen, moving from one letter to another. The second method is called TouchPal Wave, which is based on the predictive input method. It is possible to choose from several color schemes, in addition, there is an option to quickly enter additional characters.

All these and many other keyboards for iOS can be downloaded from the “Utilities” section of the App Store; they are only available for iPhone, iPad and iPod running the iOS 8 operating system.

One of the most anticipated innovations in iOS 8 was support for third-party keyboards. Developers were given previously inaccessible horizons in the development of new tools that increase the usability of Apple's mobile operating system. How does this threaten the average user? Entering text with third-party keyboards, TextExpander for example, is much more convenient and, most importantly, faster. Today we’ll look at the Swype gesture-based keyboard. Swype is a third-party keyboard for iOS from Nuance,

The entry of individual words and entire phrases in it is carried out not with individual taps, but with “swipes”.

To type a word or phrase, you do not need to lift your finger from the display of your iOS device, just move it from character to character - saving on movements and increasing the typing speed on your face. If you're used to working with a standard keyboard, Swype will take a little getting used to, but it won't take much time.

Typing text with gestures is more convenient, your fingers get less tired and the typing itself is faster.

Thanks to the guys from Nuance for supporting dictionaries. You can add frequently used words there, thereby speeding up their entry even more. Russian-speaking users can finally take advantage of the keyboard in their native language, although switching between layouts cannot be called convenient and fast. To switch between languages, you must first add Russian in the Swype settings, and then long-tap on the space bar to switch to it when necessary, or set the Russian layout as the default. After installing Swype from the App Store, the keyboard must be added in the iPhone settings in the “General” -> “Keyboard” - “Keyboards” -> “New Keyboards” menu. Don't forget to give it full access, otherwise you won't be able to switch between layouts. There are no settings in the application itself; they are available directly when entering text. There you can change the design theme (4 are available out of the box: light, dark, Sand, Earth and Sun), enable auto-correction, auto-space, sound when pressing keys, and edit your personal dictionary. Want new themes? They can be purchased for money in the application interface. Tips are also available there that describe additional features, for example: in order to write a question mark, just move your finger from the “M” key to the space bar. Swype opens up new possibilities for iPhone and iPad users: it simplifies typing long words, phrases and entire sentences and significantly speeds up the process.

The application is not ideal, considering switching layouts, going to settings, switching to a standard keyboard

And it's not free. Swype is sold inexpensively, for 59 rubles, new design themes are available for an additional fee, but for most users they will remain unclaimed (those included in the kit are enough for the eyes).