Back in December, Fleksy announced a toolkit to allow iOS developers to incorporate the company’s popular predictive and gesture-based keyboard into their apps. The initial testing period involved a public launch in four third-party apps of varying types, with Fleksy noting that it would continue to expand the program and eventually open up its SDK to all interested developers.
Today, Fleksy is announcing that next step in its iOS development program, moving the SDK out of private beta and allowing all app developers to easily incorporate Fleksy as an alternative keyboard within their apps.
With its latest update, the Fleksy SDK is now completely free of charge, requires no sign up and allows any developer to implement it in minutes, with zero lines of code and without having to make any changes to their app at all. Switching between Fleksy and the iOS keyboard is also completely streamlined.
Fleksy is one of several alternative keyboard systems that have gained popularity on Android, but Apple’s rules preventing systemwide replacement of the default keyboard have greatly slowed growth of such tools on iOS. As a workaround, Fleksy and other keyboard developers are turning to SDKs that will allow developers to add support for their keyboards on an app-by-app basis. SwiftKey is another such company that launched its own note-taking app several weeks ago and is looking to bring an SDK to select developers initially and all developers over time.
Fleksy offers automated word suggestions while the user types to help improve typing speed, while also incorporating a sophisticated autocorrect engine to help correct typing errors on the fly. Layered on top of those features is a gesture system that allows users to insert spaces and punctuation by swiping to the right and delete words by swiping to the left anywhere on the keyboard rather than having to use dedicated keys. Up and down swipes allow users to cycle through suggested words or undo automatic corrections.
While the Fleksy SDK is now open to all developers, the company has also been working with a number of developers beyond the initial group of four to integrate the Fleksy keyboard into their apps. Several of those are ready to go live today with Fleksy support, including You Doodle, Write for iPhone, Tap Forms Organizer and Secure Database, and Remoter VNC – Remote Desktop.
Fleksy is free for users and developers, and hundreds of developers have already inquired about bringing Fleksy to their apps. As a result, the Fleksy team is optimistic that adoption will grow rapidly given developer interest and the simple integration offered through the company’s SDK.
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