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iOS Custom Keyboard Megathread
- Thread starter Shawzborne
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Search in the start post of this topic for "two languages" and you will find Swiftkey, Nintype, Path Input+ (not the standard one), Fleksy (no word swipe option though).
In all other keyboards (e.g. word gesture/swipe keyboards: Swype, Go Keyboard, Path Input, TouchPal) you need to switch by hand so they don't offer this feature (yet).
I don't know. Please contact an admin.
Microsoft released they so called 'Hub Keyboard' (free, no in-app purchase). It lacks word swiping (like e.g. Swype, Swiftkey, Go Keyboard, Path Input). Maybe this will come later or I couldn't find it? It needs full access for certain features.
You are right I thought these two were one and the same but they are launching two separate keyboards for iOS. I just signed up for the beta of the Microsoft Word Flow keyboard unfortunately the beta only includes English at first but they will probably add lots of languages in a later stage when they launch (June '16 maybe). See also the recent article on MacRumors.
I'm afraid we will have to allow full access in order to use word swiping and language downloads.
I do wish more apps would work like Path Input keyboard app (which has been updated a few times recently) does by simply allowing all this and include all languages within the app so you don't have to allow full access (or at least for most of the features I want and need). Still I do love the word suggestion better in Swype but the overall keyboard layout is much better with Path Input.
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Has anyone tried Microsoft Hub Keyboard? I saw news and online videos showing you can have multiple clips in the clipboard for quick copy-paste. However on iPhone 5S, it shows juts one recent copied item not the list as in online videos. Has anyone figured it out?
I also tried Word Flow keyboard which is much better for typing/swiping but lacks this clipboard function.
I also tried Word Flow keyboard which is much better for typing/swiping but lacks this clipboard function.
I've read good things about it e.g. here and here.
I'm not able to use it yet because it's not available yet outside of the US and with other languages. I did read that it can be used without full access to still swipe words (this can't be done with Swiftkey) so similar as Swype, Path Input and Go Keyboard.
So far, the WordFlow keyboard seems to be very good at predicting the words correctly and it can learn new words in case you are typing bi-lingual or names. Arc mode is quite neat as well and feels more natural but takes a while getting used to the layout.
One glitch I noticed (and most likely it's iOS glitch) is that the keyboard reverts back to stock if you pull down the search bar a few times. I find myself swiping only to find out that suddenly it's the stock keyboard. Also it takes much longer for the 3rd party keyboards to appear compared to the stock one.
One thing I would like to point out is that with these swipe keyboards I wonder if there could be a better key layout than the standard layout which was designed for typewriters so that mechanical keys won't get jammed and not for smooth swiping on a virtual keyboard
One glitch I noticed (and most likely it's iOS glitch) is that the keyboard reverts back to stock if you pull down the search bar a few times. I find myself swiping only to find out that suddenly it's the stock keyboard. Also it takes much longer for the 3rd party keyboards to appear compared to the stock one.
One thing I would like to point out is that with these swipe keyboards I wonder if there could be a better key layout than the standard layout which was designed for typewriters so that mechanical keys won't get jammed and not for smooth swiping on a virtual keyboard
What you want is Dvorak. The problem with Dvorak though, is that we all learned to type on QWERTY, so retraining yourself will be hard. But you can do it and some soft keyboards support it. And the problem with using trace typing on a new keyboard is that your finger covers a significant portion of the keyboard display, so it's harder to know where to go.
That being said, I'm a new iOS user (2 weeks), and I immediately went to SwiftKey, because it was free and the stock iOS keyboard doesn't allow trace typing. It was okay, but when WordFlow came out, I kicked SK to the curb. It's a great keyboard for being new. I trace exclusively, so the arc mode didn't do much for me. I showed my wife and that was about it. I wish I could banish the icons for it since I'll never use it. It might help hunt and peck users, and 6/s Plus users, but on my little 6s, the regular mode is fine.
I want the Google Keyboard back... Heard a couple months ago they were porting it over, and they even hinted at some extra features. I remember the Android community (which I was a part of when I heard) was unhappy about that. I don't think they're wrong to think that Android should get the best of Google before us, but I'll be happy if we get it at all. WordFlow is pretty good, but the Google keyboard is much more mature software wise. For example, typing after a comma. SwiftKey doesn't care, will never input a space, even though there's always a space in English after a comma. Google Keyboard never will. WordFlow won't most of the time, but sometimes it will slip up.
Also, Google Keyboard got a huge update today. Sorry Apple fans — one thing Android is leaps and bounds ahead on is text selection. Like, I can tap somewhere in my text, and the cursor will just go there. If I miss, I can tap again and get it. It won't fight me on it. You know how in iOS it just wants to go to the end and offer to select all? Anyway, the new Google Keyboard lets you slide left and right on the space bar to move the cursor. So that's one iOS limitation that the Google Keyboard can prevent or at least reduce. Another feature SK and WF don't have (but I think Swype does) is the quick trace. Trace from the symbol key and the letters become symbols. Trace from the shift/caps key and they capitalize. So like if you want to say DVD, you trace from shift to D, shift to V, shift to D. Or parenthesis, you trace to I think K for ( and L for ), and you never actually leave the letters.
Anyway, in all my years with soft keyboards, I've learned decent ones are a dime a dozen. But one that just gets everything right... that's less common. I think Swype is near that point, but Swype isn't free, for one. It's a dollar, and the themes are $1-3 each. So it's not terrible. But it does keep a lot of freeloaders out, and on keyboards like SwiftKey and WordFlow, and Google's on Android. And they've done stupid stuff over the years, like wipe everyone's dictionaries (yes, this happened), and remove a feature a lot of people love. Trace right to left over Backspace to take out the whole word (Google just added this). And on their forum, they made it pretty clear that they didn't care what paid users thought, without explaining the decisions. So I would prefer to avoid them.
WordFlow is not as good at predictive text as SwiftKey. I tested them. On an email address, I typed it once in SwiftKey, and the very next time it predicted it after only 3 characters typed. WordFlow didn't predict anything after I typed it 5 times. SwiftKey is still the smartest. I do like the image customization of WordFlow though.
That's a very specific example of predicting email id. Wordflow seems to be reasonably good at learning new words, particularly names. It also feels more responsive than Swiftkey and Swype. I stopped using those because there was a considerable lag while you are swiping and the text appearing.. may be it was just getting used to it, but over the years they haven't improved in terms of speed and accuracy.
While Wordflow is good, Google's GBoard is much faster.. almost feels like real-time typing. Only quirk is the Space key is not centered, so sometimes you tend to hit the adjacent key.
While Wordflow is good, Google's GBoard is much faster.. almost feels like real-time typing. Only quirk is the Space key is not centered, so sometimes you tend to hit the adjacent key.
You probably now know that Google launched their Gboard keyboard on iOS (unfortunately still only available in the U.S. and only English). I hope they will soon update their keyboard and add languages + have option for multiple languages at once like Swiftkey does. Currently I'm still sticking to Swype on iPhone 5s and Path Input on iPad mini2. I did notice a huge lag with Swype the recent weeks so therefore I'm testing again Go Keyboard and Path Input on iPhone. I'm running iOS9.3.2.
I've just started testing ReBoard which is due to get swipe typing soon. Right now it has a special "app mode" where you can search and interact with different services from the keyboard in any app.
ReBoard Keyboard + GIF & Themes on the App Store - iTunes - Apple
edit: it seems /Slash keyboard is a better implementation of this idea.
But am still die-hard TouchPal user—even with the few quirks it has given it's not been updated since Dec 2015.
ReBoard Keyboard + GIF & Themes on the App Store - iTunes - Apple
edit: it seems /Slash keyboard is a better implementation of this idea.
But am still die-hard TouchPal user—even with the few quirks it has given it's not been updated since Dec 2015.
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I finally switched now from Swype to Gboard since they added support for Dutch. It's also pretty unique that you can use dictation feature although it uses Google's instead of Apples Siri (not allowed by Apple).
It works much better then Swype untill now as far as predictions are concerned.
Only limitation remain are:
- cannot use Siri with Gboard (only Google's version of it)
- cannot use on lock screen (Apple limitation)
- doesn't have multilanguage typing like Swiftkey, you have to switch between languages
It's great that it can also work without full access setting on but then you do miss out on the below features though:
- Google search
- GIF search
Oddly enough you can use voice dictation without full acccess.
It works much better then Swype untill now as far as predictions are concerned.
Only limitation remain are:
- cannot use Siri with Gboard (only Google's version of it)
- cannot use on lock screen (Apple limitation)
- doesn't have multilanguage typing like Swiftkey, you have to switch between languages
It's great that it can also work without full access setting on but then you do miss out on the below features though:
- Google search
- GIF search
Oddly enough you can use voice dictation without full acccess.
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Somehow Google managed to push voice dictation past the Appstore rules.. may be because it uses Google's speech-to-text instead of Apple's Siri.
While GBoard is functional, it looks odd since the Space-bar key is not centered because of the emoji key. Better alternative would be to place the emoji key on the top where Google Search button resides and maintain the standard keyboard layout.
GBoard is also integrated into the Google Search App, so separately installing the GBoard is redundant..though it doesn't have the new voice dictation yet.
Also, these swiping keyboards now feel like a gimmick especially for long words and the word prediction is getting much better which circumvents swiping on the screen.
While GBoard is functional, it looks odd since the Space-bar key is not centered because of the emoji key. Better alternative would be to place the emoji key on the top where Google Search button resides and maintain the standard keyboard layout.
GBoard is also integrated into the Google Search App, so separately installing the GBoard is redundant..though it doesn't have the new voice dictation yet.
Also, these swiping keyboards now feel like a gimmick especially for long words and the word prediction is getting much better which circumvents swiping on the screen.
It must be because they didn't implement Apple's Siri indeed. Although you could wonder if Apple should allow these third party voice dictation in third party keyboards. Don't get me wrong her I love that they added it to the keyboard.
I agree with you that it would be nicer to have that emoji key somewhere else then where it currently is.
I don't use the Google Search app so I will remain to be using the Gboard app instead especially since the Google Search App still lakes the voice dictation feature in the keyboard.
I still love and use swiping a lot and saves me a lot of time instead of typing each and ever letter. For a long words it also works nice. I've also hated that a keyboard changes my words to a word that it things it should be. In most of the cases it was wrong so I would rather still with swiping words (not perfect either but Gboard is pretty good at it and so is Swype).
One day.. Apple hopefully ads their own word swipe feature to their own keyboard so we no longer have to live with these third party solutions. Although they should then also improve Siri as far as voice dictation is concerned.
Thanks for sharing! Unfortunately don't have iDevices with 3D Touch myself to test out.
I would like to see gBoard to improve their keyboard to better understand my words. Swype does that better but unfortunately their keyboard constantly hangs in e.g. WhatsApp and I have to remove it completely form the keyboard settings in order to type something in WhatsApp.
I'm still using TouchPal (not updated since December 2015!).
Gboard and Swiftkey are almost as good these days, but I can never stay on those long before I miss TouchPal features such as gesture punctuation and numbers (swipe off bottom/top rows), delete words (swipe backspace), emoji replacement whilst typing and more.
I recently contacted TouchPal and was told they are ramping up support for the iOS keyboard, which is good news.
Gboard and Swiftkey are almost as good these days, but I can never stay on those long before I miss TouchPal features such as gesture punctuation and numbers (swipe off bottom/top rows), delete words (swipe backspace), emoji replacement whilst typing and more.
I recently contacted TouchPal and was told they are ramping up support for the iOS keyboard, which is good news.
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Just started using SwiftKey and looks very promising. I really like having two keyboards available all the time. Let's see how it goes.