Apple announced 3rd-party keyboard support for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch during the unveiling of iOS 8. Swype and SwiftKey, two most popular 3rd-party keyboards that have long been enjoyed and loved by the Android community, are coming to iOS devices. Although Apple didn’t demo any 3rd-party iOS keyboard during the keynote, however, Swype screenshot was shown on the big screen.
Tons of 3rd-party keyboards has been available to Android users for quite some time including Swype and SwiftKey, but Apple has been reluctant to allow developers to introduce their own custom iOS keyboards for iPhone and iPad. But things are going to change with the launch of iOS 8, which is set to open iOS keyboard to 3rd party developers.
SwiftKey representative has this to say about iOS keyboard support:
We’re delighted Apple has decided to embrace the importance of opening its platform to third party keyboards. For more than four years, SwiftKey and our millions of users have pioneered faster, easier typing on touchscreens, leading the industry with next-word prediction and smarter autocorrection. Our technology features on more than 200 million devices to date and we can’t wait to reach more. We first brought a taste of our technology to iOS in January this year with the launch of the free note-taking app SwiftKey Note. Are we going to build SwiftKey Keyboard for iOS 8? Of course we are. We’ve already started.
Swype keyboard available on the Google Play store (Android’s app store) claims that it has as many as 250 million users on Android OS. Once Swype for iOS hits app store, it’ll likely be greeted by similar or bigger number of users. For those not familiar, Swype is a popular custom keyboard for Android that offers swipe-to-type and predicts your next word, making things much easier.
It’s worth mentioning here that Apple also announced QuickType keyboard feature for its stock keyboard in iOS 8. Which is said to be a smart keyboard that makes predictions on the bases of context and learn your style of communication. iOS 8 keyboard is also set to bring many features that Swype and SwiftKey keyboards boast about.
We’ll be the first to notify you about the availability of SwiftKey and Swype keyboards for iOS. You might also be interested in:
iOS 8 features List
downgrade iOS 8 beta to iOS 7.1.1
Install iOS 8 beta on iPhone and iPad
Download iOS 8 Wallpaper