The iPhone’s built-in keyboard may not be everyone’s cup of tea. Sure, it delivers the utilitarian basics, but overall its limited feature set may compel some users to crave more variety and flexibility for both larger and smaller iPhone models. We’ve checked out the vast universe of keyboards now available for the iPhone and put together our picks for the best third-party keyboards.
While you’re at it, have a look at our lists of the best Android and iOS emoji keyboards to find all of the additional information you need about installing and using various emoji keyboards.
Typewise Keyboard (free)
Typewise has a unique take on key shapes. The app keeps the QWERTY design but switches the traditional rectangle-shaped keys for hexagonal ones — which Typewise says creates more surface area so you can type more accurately. While there is a slight learning curve, Typewise includes a built-in game to practice typing. With swipe gestures, dark mode support, and autocorrect modification, this is a great alternative for those who are tired of the conventional iOS keyboard. Newer versions include automatic language detection which switches the app between selected languages, an Undo button, and text replacement for often-used phrases.
Apple App Store
Grammarly (free)
The Grammarly iOS keyboard app offers sophisticated grammar review that goes beyond the usual spell check to provide advice on punctuation, spelling context, and misused words. It also helps you build your vocabulary and offer synonyms, which makes it an ideal app for students or business people. Grammarly also has emojis, a smart autocorrect feature, while allowing you to build your own dictionary. The new update suspends access to Grammarly in Russia and Belarus in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Apple App Store
Phraseboard Keyboard ($1.99)
Phraseboard aims to take the pain out of the tedious job of typing the same responses over and over by allowing you to save them, so you can just select one of your prewritten answers to reply rapidly. You can create your own customized phrases and sort them by category. You can even quickly access the Phraseboard widget to create new phrases no matter what you’re doing with your iPhone. All your phrases sync with iCloud.
Apple App Store
Gboard (free)
Gboard is a keyboard from Google for your iPhone. The keyboard includes everything you’d ever want within a single app. Whether you’re sending GIFs or emojis, searching Google for information, sending directions, or something else, Gboard has you covered. With Gboard, you can search and send anything from Google, including information on nearby restaurants, videos, images, weather forecasts, news, sports scores, and more. The app also offers Glide Typing, which allows you to type messages faster and more accurately.
Apple App Store
Microsoft SwiftKey (free)
The Microsoft SwiftKey Keyboard for iOS is a smart keyboard that learns from you, adapting to the way you type and picking up on your preferred emojis and slang. It’s loaded with features that make typing easier, including multilingual support, countless emojis, and speedy swipe typing with SwiftKey Flow. With the app, you can type less, more accurately, and in your own language. SwiftKey offers support for more than 150 languages including four versions of English, two kinds of Portuguese, Italian, German, four kinds of French, and three kinds of Spanish. You can also customize the look and layout of your keyboard. Emoji search is also available for most languages in the SwiftKey Toolbar.
Apple App Store
Flexible (free)
Fleksy offers users a fun and interactive way to type in your own style. You can customize your Fleksy keyboard with powerful extensions and more than 50 colorful themes. Some of the themes cost $1, but many are free. More than 800 emojis come with the app, and it also has its own built-in GIF search engine. The keyboard supports dozens of languages including English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Italian, Portuguese, Turkish, Hebrew, Dutch, and more. It learns your typing habits as you go, enabling it to give you accurate predictions, which helps cut down on typos.
Apple App Store
Color Keyboard (free)
The king of keyboard customization is Color Keyboard. Sure, it gives you emojis and autocorrection, and even allows you to tap and hold the space bar to be able to move the cursor, but what really sets this keyboard apart is the option to change anything you want about the look of the keyboard. You can change the keyboard background using solid colors, gradients, textures, and even your own pictures. You can also customize the buttons by changing the colors and borders, adding shadows, customizing the fonts, and changing the sounds. If your aim is customization, Color Keyboard takes things to the next level, but you have to subscribe to access everything, starting at $3 per week and rising for longer intervals and premium features.
Apple App Store
Bitmoji (free)
Bitmoji, a popular keyboard app, is ideal if you want to send an emoji that resembles you rather than using standard emojis or text. Bitmoji allows you to customize and send a personalized emoji, all from your keyboard. Use Bitmoji with any of your most used chat apps, like iMessage or Snapchat. It’s never been easier to make a dynamic avatar and adapt it with an ever-changing collection of stickers and moods. You’ll need your Facebook login information to sign into Bitmoji and to initiate the avatar creation process.
Apple App Store
GIF Keyboard (free)
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a GIF can truly help get your point across. Get access today to the massive library of animated and musical GIFs for free with GIF keyboard on your smartphone. From there, you can search specific GIFs that you know and love or search for keywords to find some animations that fit your mood. The GIF keyboard app is compatible with WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, Facebook messenger, iMessage, and just about any other messenger app or social media site. To send your own perfect GIF, press your finger on an existing GIF and hold it down to browse options. Once you’ve found one to use, share its link, the GIF itself, a video, or save the media to your photo library. You can also customize the tool to match your specifications and save your favorite GIFs using the keyboard.
Apple App Store
Editors’ Recommendations
