There are all sorts of keyboard apps for iPhone. You could go for a classic like SwiftKey which will give you gesture-based typing and a much superior autocomplete feature. Or you can install Gboard, the recently released keyboard app from Google that puts the Google search bar right inside your keyboard. And that’s just the start. If you want to get all productive, you can literally use apps like Dropbox right from the keyboard. We’ve talked about crazy productive keyboard apps in a previous article.
What we haven’t talked about though are crazy fun apps. And today, that’s exactly what we’re doing. If you don’t know what third party keyboard apps are and how to enable them on your iPhone running iOS 8 or higher, check out this article.
Top Fun Keyboard Apps for iPhone
1. Next Keyboard
Next keyboard came out of a Kickstarter project. And it’s kept improving on its original promise – a beautiful third party keyboard that was stable enough for everyday use – ever since. In fact, Next is probably one of the few keyboards for iPhone (right up there with SwiftKey and Gboard) that you can actually use all the time as a replacement for the default iOS keyboard.
Let’s face it. Your life is pretty colorful. It’s not just your personality that says so, it’s also your iPhone cover. So then why should your keyboard be made of dull white and grey.
Next gives you access to many colorful themes. Themes that are not just picked from a random color picker (like many keyboard apps out there). No, these are thoughtfully designed and look like it.
You can go classic black if you want. Or go for the much more cheerful Gold or Beach theme.
Next also has an interesting implementation of adding emojis. If you write something like “lol”, you’ll see the laughing out loud emoji.
Download: Next Keyboard ($1.99)
2. Next Emoji Keyboard
Next Emoji Keyboard is easy to explain. It’s the same Next keyboard but with emojis and stickers. Lots of them. Currently, the app supports 1400 emojis, and 180 stickers.
Download: Next Emoji Keyboard ($1.99)
3. Themeboard
Themeboard’s concept is pretty simple. A simple keyboard but with themes. Lots of them.
Download: Themeboard
4. Wonder
Rightfully so, this keyboard is kind of a wonder. And a wonder that it exists. Along with offering a set of emojis – like every other keyboard app out there, it gives you something more. A personality. Four, in fact.
If you’ve ever wanted to type like a valley girl (as if!), or a texan, this app is for you.
Just type in the boring, mundane way that you usually do and let Wonder give you suggestions on how to say the same thing better, in the personality of your choice.
Check out the video below to get a sense of how it works.
Download: Wonder
5. PopKey
There are lots of GIF keyboards out there. LOTS. In fact, even productivity focused keyboards will let you insert GIFs from GIPHY. That’s how popular GIFs have gotten.
But PopKey is the original GIF keyboard for iPhone and in many ways, still one of the best.
It lets you browse GIFs based on categories, shows you a full preview before letting you paste it in the conversation.
But as I said, PopKey is in no way the only option.
Here are just some of the worthy alternatives:
- Giffage: Create GIFs, export GIFs, share them from the keyboard, all from one app.
- Gboard: Google’s official keyboard has one of the best GIF and Emoji keyboards I’ve seen. The emoji search itself works pretty well.
- GIF Keyboard: I mean, it’s right there in the name.
- GIPHY KEYS: Yup, GIPHY has it’s own GIF keyboard. Complete with all caps app name and everything.
Download: PopKey
6. Hemingboard
Hemingboard does something similar to Wonder. Only it doesn’t have the personality thing. Once you’ve typed something, Hemingboard will give you alternatives. Better alternatives.
Hemingboard promises to make your conversations wittier and will help you reply with all the great puns.
Download: Hemingboard ($1.99)
7. Kimunji Keyboard
This is another keyboard from the makers of Next. And the only reason I put it here is because its sheer existence amuses me. Because guess what the world needed? Kim Jong-Un themed emoji stickers.
Either you think they’re fun or you think you’re doing your little part in making the world better by using these emojis – give them a shot.
Download: Kimunji
8. Kaomoji Keyboard
If you follow the right kind of snarky accounts on Twitter, you know what Kaomoji is. It’s a Japanese version of emojis. And they’re quite popular. You might have seen the creepy face kaomoji somewhere by now.
Now, using this keyboard, you can drop them in anywhere you like.
Download: Kaomoji Keyboard
9. Emoji++
This one’s for the emoji nerds. It uses a simple tab-based UI to give you access to lots of different types of emojis, quickly. You can also build collections of your favorite emojis and view your most recently used emojis as well.
Download: Emoji++ ($0.99)
10. KittyKey
You didn’t think we’d end this list without a single cat related app, did you? When we’re talking about fun and the internet, there’s no way to escape kitty cats.
KittyKey brings you everything from cat kaomoji, emoji, stickers and even cat sounds! All from one keyboard.
Download: KittyKey ($0.99)
Your Favorite Keyboard App
We know that using a custom keyboard isn’t the easiest thing in the Apple universe. Which is why we hope they get a big overhaul in iOS 10.
Still, I’ve personally started using Gboard because it gives me both the fun features of GIF and emoji search as well as a Google search bar to enhance my productivity.
What about you, though? Do you think the fun features of GIF and theme based keyboards are enough to overshadow all the problems that come with using a custom keyboard? Do you already use one of the keyboards mentioned above?
Share your views with us in the comments below.
