With iOS 8, Apple now allows developers to create alternative keyboards on iPhone and iPad that can be used almost anywhere to replace the system keyboard. We told you about several third-party keyboards for iOS 8 including when the major operating system update was released last month, and a few more interesting third-party keyboards have since been released. The first is an Emoji-only keyboard called Emoji++ that makes finding the right Emoji character much faster, and the second is both a language and symbol keyboard called Character Keyboard for typing out special characters.
Emoji++ — $0.99
The Emoji++ keyboard bills itself at the fastest way to type emoji on iOS. It achieves that by allowing you to scroll through your emoji list as a single collection rather than relying on swiping through pages of segmented collections.
You also gain the ability to “favorite” emoji characters for quick access in addition to seeing your most recently used emoji characters. The sidebar offers quick access to jumping to certain sets of emoji similar to the side scroll bar from Contacts or Music, only with Emoji and not letters. There’s also iPad support which presents even more Emoji characters all at once with the same scrolling support for fast access.
If you’re a frequent Emoji user or just find the system Emoji keyboard frustrating, check out Emoji++. Grab it for $0.99 on the App Store.
Character Keyboard — $1.99
The next keyboard is both a full alphabetical and numerical keyboard as well as a keyboard loaded with special character keys including the Apple logo. In the past I’ve relied on copying and pasting many of these characters from around the Internet when I need them or setting up keyboard shortcuts for specific ones, but that’s a lot of work.
Instead, Character Keyboard provides both a full keyboard and several screens of special character keys. You can access each additional keyboard by scrolling left and right to each one. When you’re deep in a keyboard of characters and you want to quickly jump back to the alphabet, there’s an ABC button for that. There’s also a pull-right gesture that reveals quick access to specific special character keyboards by category.
Character Keyboard supports both light and dark themes. You can toggle the themes manually in the app or allow themes to change automatically based on the time of day.
I think this one will be good to have quick access to and it’s much faster than my old methods of typing special characters. Character Keyboard is available on the App Store for $1.99.
—
For more third-party keyboard options, check out our roundup of the best third-party keyboards for iOS 8 and let us know below if you have a favorite you’re using.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Downloaded this earlier this morning after reading Jon Gruber’s recommendation on Daring Fireball, and reading the developer’s blog (David Smith) describing the app and what it brings to the iOS Keyboard.
I’m really pleased that I did, and Emoji++ has displaced my previous one as first choice.
Continuous vertical scrolling through characters, with more logically thought-out sections on the right hand side make this app a winner and the first 3rd party keyboard I’ve downloaded.
Can’t anyone do a keyboard that just adds a row of numbers above the standard QWERTY?
Perhaps you should become a developer just so you can specifically create such a keyboard? I know I would very much like to have a keyboard just like that…thats one of the things I miss about the HP TouchPad keyboard :(
“iKeywi” is the perfect app for you….
I almost commented and said that this was fro jalbroken iPhones only….but I checked the app store before I possibly put my foot in my mouth…and lo and behold…there it is!!! I always loved it, and am using it on my jailbroken iphone now. One more reason (and they are adding up) to stop jailbreaking and being on old firmware, but rather enter the Appleseed program and run beta software. AWESOME!!!
They need to make improvements to the reliability and fluidity of the 3rd party keyboards.
yeah. 8.1 beta doesn’t even help much. i hope its dramatically improved soon.
a large part of me thinks its the keyboards themselves that need work
Yes!
It’s a half-baked buggy mess right now. I have turned off all third party keyboards until it’s fixed.
And like you said, 8.1 doesn’t help.
SwiftKey had been my keyboard of choice when I owned an Android phone. Now that it’s on the iPhone I switched, but it’s still buggy and temperamental. I’ll have to check out the Emoji++ keyboard. Wasn’t there talk of adding more emoji?
Don’t third party keyboards get full access to your keystrokes? Why would anyone concerned about privacy install these things?
Your concern is legit but also 3rd party keyboards (like Swift) are easier to use than the stock keyboard. What you can do is use the stock keyboard when logging into websites that require usernames/passwords or sensitive information or a 3rd party keyboard when not.
I hope Google Keyboard is released for iOS. I LOVE the abilityt to tap and hold a top row letter to get a number. After using it, any keyboard that forces me to switch between letter and number views feels primitive.
All useless without the “mic” option on the keyboard… I’m back to default.