When Apple added third-party keyboard support to the iPhone and iPad in iOS 8, I was beyond excited for all of the possibilities that would now be open to those of us in Apple’s walled garden.
I had my fun with Swype, and we even saw a few keyboard options that were all-around bad ideas. Fleksy, however, was a great idea, and it quickly grew to be one of the most useful and customizable keyboards on iOS. Yesterday, Fleksy announced a partnership with GIF Keyboard developer Riffsy, merging excellent typing, emoji, and 1000’s of GIFs, all into the same keyboard.
To celebrate the partnership, Fleksy has gone free for the first time ever (previously $0.99).
As Fleksy notes in their latest blog post, “The partnership makes it easier than ever before to share highly expressive content across iMessage, SMS, Twitter, email and Facebook. You will be able to send GIFs instantly, right from within your main keyboard. All this is made possible thanks to the new features of iOS 8 and the great GIF support that the Apple platform has offered.”
The last time I played around with Fleksy was back when it first hit iOS last Fall. Since then, the keyboard has developed into an extremely sleek, buttery-smooth experience, and I’m really enjoying the numerous extensions and themes that are available. After using Fleksy for most of the day today (and sending far, far too many GIFs over the last few hours), I’ve really gained an appreciation for just how fast (and it really is fast) and intuitive its gesture support is . I have to say that the only thing keeping the default English keyboard active on my iPhone is the fact that Apple hasn’t yet allowed third-party developers to take advantage of the iPhone’s dictation support.
Fleksy is now called Fleksy + GIF Keyboard, and you can download it to your iOS device right here. Again, the app will be free for the week before returning to it’s regular $0.99 price.
Are you a fan of third-party keyboards on iOS? If so, which is your favourite?
