The iPhone’s autocorrect function can be a source of endless entertainment and frustration for iPhone owners. Although most people probably don’t stop and think about it, Apple’s keyboard is, in part, to blame for this comedy of errors. Sometimes you may feel so frustrated that you want to turn off the autocorrect feature entirely.
Meanwhile, Android phone owners have been enjoying some of the best third-party Android keyboard apps for quite some time. For years, Swype, SwiftKey, Fleksy, and more took over as the default keyboards in millions of Android smartphones while iPhone owners looked on enviously. But ever since June 2014, iPhone owners have been downloading alternative iOS keyboards like crazy. Here are our picks for the best keyboards for the iPhone.
Our favorite iPhone keyboards
Phraseboard Keyboard (free)
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 quickly select one of those 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. Don’t worry about having to re-install this keyboard because all your phrases sync with iCloud.
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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 through 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 adds Glide Typing, which allows you to type messages faster and more accurately.
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SwiftKey (free)
The SwiftKey Keyboard for iOS is a smart keyboard that learns from you, replacing the iPhone’s built-in keyboard with one that adapts to the way you type. It’s loaded with tons of features that make typing even 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.
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Fleksy (free)
Fleksy offers users a fun and interactive way to type in your own way and your own style. Flesky lets you customize your 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 42 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.
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Minuum ($4)
Minuum is a smart keyboard that learns about your typing style with every word you write. The autocorrect tool should improve over time, enabling you to choose from multiple word predictions. Minuum is also optimized to allow you to type comfortably on smaller devices. The app makes it easier than ever to type one-handed or in landscape mode. Some of the features included in the keyboard are smart emoji, international language support for 13 languages, keyboard shortcuts, dictionary control, and much more.
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Go Keyboard (Free)
Go Keyboard offers next-word prediction, swipe typing, emojis, and stickers. This keyboard is very customizable, with tons of themes, custom backgrounds, and even key tones and fonts. The free version supports more than 40 languages. If you opt for the subscription, you can go ad-free and get a wider choice of themes and stickers, but it’s expensive at $20 per month. If you’re in a country where you need a keyboard in something other than English or Spanish, particularly if you have a need for hard-to-find foreign languages like Thai, Urdu, and Lithuanian, then this is a keyboard you will most certainly want to try out.
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Touchpal Keyboard (Free)
Touchpal gives you all the usual features you’d expect from a top keyboard. What sets this one apart is the number of available emojis and themes. You have access to more than 1,500 emojis and can take advantage of swipe gestures called TouchPal Curve. There’s also Talia, the A.I. assistant and AvatarMoji that enables you to create a GIF emoticon of your own image. All these features and more make Touchpal the keyboard for anyone who loves to customize.
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Color Keyboard (free)
The king of keyboard customization is Color Keyboard. Sure, it gives you emojis, 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 themselves by changing the colors and borders, adding shadows, customizing the fonts, and even changing the sounds. So if your aim is customization, Color Keyboard takes things to the next level, but you have to subscribe to access everything and it’s expensive at $6 a month.
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Bitmoji (free)
Bitmoji is the perfect keyboard app for people who prefer to send depictions of themselves instead of mere texts. Bitmoji lets you create and send your very own emoji directly from your keyboard. You can use it in Snapchat, iMessage, or any of your favorite chat apps. You can easily create an expressive avatar and then choose from a growing library of moods and stickers, all of which utilize your avatar. Moreover, if you’re one of the millions of people with a Bitstrips avatar, you can simply download the app, sign in using your Facebook account, and have instant access to your personal avatar and collection.
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Tenor Gif Keyboard (free)
Not sure how to express yourself? Say it with a GIF. The Tenor GIF Keyboard lets you search through millions of animated GIFs, some with music and some without. The GIFs are separated into categories for those of you who don’t have a particular one in mind. Customize your keyboard with the GIFs you love the most and create collections of your favorite GIFs. The app works with your favorite messengers and social networks including iMessage, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Twitter, and Facebook. Just long-press on a GIF to pull up options to share the GIF, video, or link, or to save to camera roll.
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Dig deeper into emoji keyboards with our picks for the top emoji keyboards for iOS and Android. And if you’re looking to have fun texting, here are our picks for the best 15 free texting games.
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