iPhone Keyboard Apps

One great feature of the Android platform is its predictive text input that guesses what you want to type. With Smart Keyboard, you can have the same results on iOS. The concept is simple: as you are typing a word a few boxes appear above the keyboard that probably include the word you want to input. By simply clicking a box, it automatically types in the word for you. With this killer feature and great stability, Smart Keyboard is an essential app that everyone looking for an alternative keyboard should try.

Fast Keyboard deals with many of the frustrations that many have with the default iPhone keyboard. For starters, this app places two extra rows of keys on its keyboard, allowing you to specify what they display. There is also an included sidebar next to what you have typed with various tools that can speed up your writing including undo and redo buttons, superscripts/subscripts and arrow keys to move the cursor. The performance of this app is fantastic and even supports files for things you have written and saved. Overall, Fast Keyboard is essential because of its speed, usability and plain usefulness.

Those who are switching over from the Blackberry world may miss the Pearl-style keyboard. That design consisted of putting two characters on one key, which is what this app is all about. Truthfully, there is nothing good or bad about this particular keyboard and whether you will like it or not it comes down to personal preference.

Easy Typing takes the whole idea of predictive text input to a whole different level. Rather than making a static keyboard where all keys are considered equals, the developer of this app decided to size each key differently based on frequency of use. This functionality can easily improve your typing speed greatly if you're willing to get used to it. Easy Typing also has support for sending Email and SMS messages. Although it does occasionally have lag problems, this app is worth a try for anyone sick of the default keyboard.

Some argue that the iPhone's keys are too small for many people's fingers. The goal of this app is to provide an Apple-like keyboard to those who would prefer a larger size. Along with the large keyboard, Keyboard+ allows users to post what they type to Twitter, Facebook an email message, or an SMS. Despite its niceties, the main issue that holds Keyboard+ back is the lag time, making it an app that has potential rather than an essential one.

The idea behind Keyboard2 is to utilize the entire display as a customizable keyboard, while the text you type lies behind the transparent keys. While a great concept in theory, it is not hard to get confused with the typed text behind the keys, making this keyboard a bit of a messy experience. Keyboard2 also fails to capitalize on social networking, only giving you the options to send an email or SMS. My recommendation for this app is to simply try it if you think you will like the concept, otherwise I would skip it and look at other options in the App Store.

Unlike its counterparts in this guide, FullKey takes a more traditional approach to typing. Despite displaying more keys than the default keyboard, FullKey does not have many advantages over it. Also, the coloring of this keyboard makes one think that Fischer Price designed it to be used in one of their toy smart phones. Due to this and the small amount of functionality, unless you like the bit of extra space that FullKey provides, this is probably not the app for you.