Found in a number of well-crafted apps including Launch Center Pro and Wordbox, the iOS-friendly alternative keyboard Fleksy today announced the release of a public SDK allowing developers to easily integrate it with their own apps. Prior to the public SDK, support was somewhat limited as it required a private partnership. Fleksy say a dozen new apps will gain support today expects new support to be frequent based on the volume of requests from developers to integrate the keyboard prior to the public SDK.
Fleksy offers their own iOS app for trying out and customizing the keyboard. It’s a bit different than the native iOS keyboard, but you can view tutorials on Fleksy’s website.
“We’re very excited to finally make our SDK available to hundreds of thousands of developers around the world. We learned a lot from the private beta and today’s release brings the most beautiful, streamlined 3rd-party keyboard experience yet for iOS” said Ioannis Verdelis, COO of Fleksy.
While the public SDK does mean more developers will have the option to offer the keyboard in their own apps, universal support would still require integration on Apple’s side of development. As alternative keyboards like Fleksy and Swiftkey gain popularity, it becomes more curious to see if Apple will provide native support in iOS similar to what they offer with the popular emoticon keyboard Emoji.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCQUbkt68T0
Apple’s CEO Tim Cook mentioned opening up more APIs for developers at the All Things D conference last May, and we saw new gaming APIs with the release of iOS 7. Could extended keyboard support be in the cards for iOS in the near future?
Developers interested in integrating Fleksy’s keyboard can check out their website, and users looking to try out Fleksy can download their app from the App Store.
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What does “Flesky” offer that the Apple Keyboard doesn’t? I just see a difference in the GUI. My iPhone is Jailbroken so I have use the Spotlight-colored Keyboard.
I don’t get it. I’ve read two articles about this and watched that video five times.
I don’t see what the deal is or why anyone would want this keyboard over the built-in one. It seems to operate in exactly the same manner based on the video. I’m sure there is probably a reason, but it isn’t explained either by FlexKey’s own marketing materials or either of the two articles I have read.
Personally, I would be more interested in the ability to “tweak” the current keyboard rather than replace it. There are keys I rarely if ever use, and some that I do use that are three touches deep. If I could re-arrange or re-prioritise some of the keys, perhaps even save profiles of keyboards, so that I could use one when coding and another when writing (two completely different activities), that would be far more useful than the ability to install whatever the latest trendy keyboard would be.
we don’t need any 3rd party keyboards please contact developers.
Don’t tell me what I need.
I doubt a keyboard API will be coming any time soon. Apple is way too concerned about privacy and security. If alternative keyboards were allowed onto the system, keyloggers would be much easier to distribute (outside of the App Store, as hackers can use enterprise developer certificates to distribute apps outside of the Store), which would be a massive security issue.
I have tried Fleksy and it’s not intuitive and nerve wrecking.
I don’t see it useful either.