14 DAY TRIAL // Since Apple has agreed to let developers make their own custom keyboard that can be used system wide, we have already seen a couple of concepts. Well-known developers like Fleksy, Swype or SwiftKey are working on their special keyboards.
The best one by far is developed by the Smile Software team. It's not the design, but the sheer functionality of the TextExpander keyboard and the fact that you can actually use it in the native Mail.app, for example, to expand small snippets into paragraphs.
The same idea, but done in a different way, stays behind QuickBoard. Imagine you could essentially have a big clipboard with the most commonly used bits of text and you can use that to fill out forms. The interface is pretty weird, but it gets the job done right away.
QuickBoard temporarily replaces your keyboard with big blocks of text that have relevant information for you. As expected, you need to work on setting those blocks of text beforehand, but you will gain precious time when you use them in emails or form fields around the Internet. It can be anything from your name, email address, phone number, street address, zip code and even your current location.
QuickBoard has 3 different panels: TextBoard, MeBoard and LocationBoard. As one may guess, the first one is good for large pieces of text that you may use repeatedly, the second one is your info, and the third one can send your coordinates.
Another interesting third-party keyboard is actually a port from Android. Minuum is known for an interesting way of changing its height when all keys are not needed.
The mini-mode will get you some keys though. The Auto-Correct option of iOS will catch any mistakes you might make and give you the option of choosing the correct word Fleksy-style.
And since we were talking about Fleksy, this is one of the first that were announced for iOS 8. Its developers say Fleksy is the fastest keyboard in the world and, with it you also get emoji, colorful themes and a very good autocorrect feature.
Fleksy will bring powerful gestures and will let you see more of your screen and you don't even have to look at your screen when you are typing. So far, there is a Fleksy proof of concept app in the AppStore and some developers have included this keyboard in their third-party apps.
