One of the features that I really like about Android is the ability to install feature rich third-party keyboard like SwiftKey, Swype etc.
At the D11 conference in June, when Apple’s CEO Tim Cook said that the company plans to open up a “lot more” on the API front in the future, I was hoping that Apple would open up API for the keyboard in iOS 7, so developers could launch third-party keyboards in the App Store as well.
Unfortunately, as you all know that didn’t happen. Developers of Fleksy, the San Francisco based startup that had launched a standalone keyboard app last year are aiming for the next best thing. They’ve just released a SDK for iOS, so that they can convince developers to use the Fleksy keyboard in their apps with a single line of code.
The Fleksy app has received rave reviews with Wired saying that it’s light-years better than the iPhone’s autocorrect, which we all know can get quite annoying.
It’s going to be an uphill task for Fleksy, but they have managed to rope in developers of popular apps such as Launch Center Pro (download link) as their launch partners. GV Connect, BlindSquare and Wordbox are the other apps that have replaced with the iOS keyboard with Fleksy. Apple hasn’t made any improvements to the iOS keyboard even in iOS 7 except for some cosmetic changes, so by integrating Fleksy’s keyboard, developers could further enhance the user experience in their apps.
Here’s a demo of the Fleksy – Happy Typing app (download link) to get an idea of how it works:
Developers can download the Fleksy SDK for iOS from here.
No comments:
Post a Comment