Best iOS 11 Keyboards

So it's been a long time for me not to write about tech anymore. Since I decided to make an instagram account and slowly move my post to that platform. But apparently instagram disabled my account just after I made my new tech account. It says that I violated something with my one second account.

Anyway, back to the topic. The best iOS keyboard out there is here. For me, there are 2 of them. Here they are:

1. Swiftkey

Yes, Swiftkey is very popular in the Android world, far far away before it reached the galaxy of iOS. But now on iOS 11 it is even getting better.

The design
There is no much different on iOS third party's keyboard design as Apple limits developer's capability on modifying the design. Maybe for the sake of user so they (umh, we I guess) won't be confused on design changes. The only design that Apple let them (or maybe us) to change is the background. You can choose between the background that they have provided for you or you can freely use any image that you own including the picture of your crush that you've saved for years in your smartphone.

The Comfort
Human nowadays write less, type more. And we need to feel comfortable as we are writing. That is why BlackBerry is still keeping its legendary physical keyboard. The comfort of Swiftket Keyboard is very, you know, comfortable. That is why it's now become my main keyboard on my iPhone. Maybe if you are like me who speaks in many languages combined in one sentence, it will make you fall in love with this keyboard. It is about its ability to predict and auto correct my words in 2 languages at the same time! Or maybe more languages. Cool right? Honestly it's more like creepy since a machine nowadays is able to know my habit on typing my words. I say it's creepy because one can know someone's character based on how they interact with others. And that "how I interact with people" data is somehow stored in Swiftkey's server now, and and, and if they use it to do something like countering my argument, or or, or maybe they could send that data to my mom so she would know my activity on internet, or maybe...
Ok fine. This is going nowhere. But seriously, being able to type comfortably with mind blowing predictions without any hesitation to change between languages is awesome!

2. Gboard

Gboard is also a very popular keyboard on Android since the newer version of Android smartphones are now using Gboard as their default typing weapon. With mother Google's integration on every Google's product, Gboard is no exception on making use of this blessing. 

The Design

Gboard is just like other iOS keyboards -sure it is-. It gives you the ability to costumise the design and background as well so it fits your lifestyle. The real noticeable different on this keyboard that you can spot is the presence of a Google kind of logo on the top left corner of the keyboard that really raise your curiosity to press that button at the first time you see it. It will bring you to mother Google to search directly on your keyboard without leaving your most important chat, and you can easily share those search result to your friend. All hail mother Google.

The next thing that you're going to -not really- notice is the predictive bar that provides two images if you haven't typed any words. Those are shortcuts for GIFs. The one in the middle is for searching GIFs on the internet. And the right one is for making your own GIFs if you feel the internet fails to provide GIFs you that like.

The Comfort

Typing on this keyboard is okay. For me, the first thing I look for on a third party keyboard is the auto correct and prediction feature. Because we are typing on a piece of glass, I want to be free to not hit my finger exactly on the same exact spot like on the physical keyboards. So I can type "Call" with "csll" and the keyboard will automatically correct this for me. This is the most important thing for me on a glass surfaced keyboard. And Gboard is doing a good job on providing this, at least for me. But I already am satisfied with the magic of Swiftkey in term of Auto correct and prediction typing experience. And maybe Google has realised that and trying to provide something else, the integration of Google itself. 

Verdict

And here comes the iOS stock keyboard. What? The stock keyboard? 

Yes, the stock iOS keyboard comes in the middle of SwiftKey and Gboard. Its prediction is okay, auto correct is okay too. It also cannot predict 2 languages at the same time without changing the language. Not as powerful as SwiftKey. It doesn't even have a GIF support. Luckily most of our chatting platforms nowadays have GIFs support natively. And don't forget the most underrated iOS feature, the 3D touch. The 3D touch integration on the stock iOS keyboard is seamless. You can edit text like highlighting and navigating just like using a trackpad. 3D touch is present on those 2 keyboards, but only for moving the cursor, which is not very convenient. 

So, what's the verdict verdict, huh? As usual, it depends on you people. What do you want mostly on your keyboard? Is it the GIF? Is it the 3D touch native integration? Or maybe the magical language auto correction thing. 

For me personally, I like to change between those keyboards. I like to experience all of the features that they offer. When I'm editing on a big document such as my film script, I'd like to use the stock keyboard because I like to change a lot of things. While chatting, I use the Gboard and SwiftKey. 

That's all my thoughts on these keyboards, peeps. Let me know your opinion in the comment section. Follow me on my instagram @harrismaulana and click that youtube link on my bio to watch my films. See you on my next post. :D