Found in a number of well-crafted apps including Launch Center Pro and Wordbox, the iOS-friendly alternative keyboard Fleksy today announced the release of a public SDK allowing developers to easily integrate it with their own apps. Prior to the public SDK, support was somewhat limited as it required a private partnership. Fleksy say a dozen new apps will gain support today expects new support to be frequent based on the volume of requests from developers to integrate the keyboard prior to the public SDK.
Fleksy offers their own iOS app for trying out and customizing the keyboard. It’s a bit different than the native iOS keyboard, but you can view tutorials on Fleksy’s website.
“We’re very excited to finally make our SDK available to hundreds of thousands of developers around the world. We learned a lot from the private beta and today’s release brings the most beautiful, streamlined 3rd-party keyboard experience yet for iOS” said Ioannis Verdelis, COO of Fleksy.
While the public SDK does mean more developers will have the option to offer the keyboard in their own apps, universal support would still require integration on Apple’s side of development. As alternative keyboards like Fleksy and Swiftkey gain popularity, it becomes more curious to see if Apple will provide native support in iOS similar to what they offer with the popular emoticon keyboard Emoji.
Apple’s CEO Tim Cook mentioned opening up more APIs for developers at the All Things D conference last May, and we saw new gaming APIs with the release of iOS 7. Could extended keyboard support be in the cards for iOS in the near future?
Developers interested in integrating Fleksy’s keyboard can check out their website, and users looking to try out Fleksy can download their app from the App Store.
