Android and iPhone Keyboard Apps to Turbocharge Your Typing

One day my grandchildren will gather around my dusty collection of gadgets and stare with bewilderment at the small hardware keyboards found on the first generations of smartphones. They’ll laugh and ask if the phones also had to be attached to a windmill to work.

Looking longingly at the plastic keys that once felt perfect to me, I’ll remember that while the transition to typing on glass screens was a hard time in my life, I couldn’t imagine returning to a keyboard that wasn’t smart enough to predict my words and adapt to my needs.

Now that you can install third-party keyboard apps on both Android and iOS, developers are aggressively (and creatively) working to speed up how we input text while freeing us from typos or embarrassing autocorrect flubs.

They’re rethinking how we interact with the keys—even the idea of keys altogether. You can still tap letters, but you can also swipe your finger around the screen, throw in chunks of pre-typed text, draw characters or even dictate to your phone. Some are beginning to bring desktop-like shortcuts and features to the palm of our hand.