To enable extended functionality, Apple allows users to enable full access for third party keyboards in the settings app. These measures are in place to protect the user's privacy and security. They are unable to get information about what words are being inputted or what content is in an app, and they are unable to access networking to do server side prediction. Third party keyboards are, by default, placed in an extremely restrictive sandbox. Swiftkey immediately after installation on an iPadĪs you can see above, the bar for predictions is covered by a banner asking the user to enable 'full access.' This is because of the sandboxing that Apple does for third party keyboards on iOS.

However, you may notice that there's one very important thing missing. Once you've done this you'll be ready to start using SwiftKey. With the app installed the SwiftKey keyboard would show up in the section to add a new keyboard under a header for third party keyboards. Once you've installed SwiftKey from the App Store, you'll need to go into the settings app to add it as shown in the image above. In the case of SwiftKey this is fine, as the application is home to settings for SwiftKey Cloud, languages, settings, and themes. Due to the nature of Apple's implementation of extensions, even applications on iOS 8 that are essentially just extensions meant to run in other apps must have a container application that gets placed on the home screen. They've been kind enough to provide us with a beta version of the SwiftKey keyboard for testing, along with some insight into developing extensions on iOS 8 and their hopes for SwiftKey's future on both iOS and Android.Īssuming that nothing delays Apple's approval for the app, the first step for users who want to get SwiftKey after upgrading to iOS 8 will be to download it from the App Store. Earlier this week SwiftKey announced that they hope to have their keyboard available on the App Store when iOS 8 finally rolls out to users worldwide.

Swift key app