“Now that you can install third-party keyboard apps on both Android and iOS, developers are aggressively (and creatively) working to speed up how we input text while freeing us from typos or embarrassing autocorrect flubs,” Joanna Stern reports for The Wall Street Journal. “They’re rethinking how we interact with the keys — even the idea of keys altogether. You can still tap letters, but you can also swipe your finger around the screen, throw in chunks of pre-typed text, draw characters or even dictate to your phone. Some are beginning to bring desktop-like shortcuts and features to the palm of our hand.”
“Not all the options are created equal. I looked at no fewer than 10 oddly named apps — from Minuum to Fleksy — found in the Apple App Store and Google Play store to find a handful to recommend,” Stern reports. “SwiftKey remains my top keyboard replacement because, like a loved one in a decades-long relationship, it’s great at finishing my sentences. SwiftKey isn’t the only app that suggests words as you type. Both Google and Apple’s keyboards now do this. But in iOS 8’s first month, SwiftKey is already smarter at predicting my words than the rest. It suggests my often-used phrases (‘done and done’ and ‘k’), people (my boss’s name) and places (my favorite restaurant or my spin class).”
“A new $1.99 iPhone app called KuaiBoard makes adding long phrases or addresses dead simple. It isn’t meant to be your main keyboard—in fact, there are no letters. Instead you toggle to KuaiBoard when you need to insert big chunks of text by hitting the Apple keyboard’s globe icon,” Stern reports. “Tap a button associated with text you’ve added—for me, work address, cellphone number, two email signatures and an email template I send frequently — and boom, it inserts it automatically.”
Read more in the full article here.