Adaptxt Keyboard is a capable and free iOS 8 add-on
One of the great things about iOS 8 is the addition of third party keyboards allowing swipe typing, a variety of symbols and foreign language support.
I've already looked at Swype from Nuance (US$0.99) and found it generally superior to the Apple standard keyboard. Adaptxt is offering a free keyboard with the same swipe features, a boatload of languages (I count about a hundred) and specialized keyboards for everything from baseball symbols to keyboards designed for finance and scientific disciplines.
Like all third party keyboards, you load it via an an app. Within the app are some special features that can be turned on and off to customize your experience. Select the keyboard in your system settings to enable it and then it is available at any time by tapping the "globe" key on the Apple keyboard or any other installed keyboard.
I was mainly interested in how the keyboard worked with swipe typing. I found it just as responsive as the Nuance Swype keyboard. Unlike a typical keyboard, you drag your fingers to different keys without lifting your finger from the keyboard. The software generally figures out" what you are typing and inserts the correct word. You don't even need to press the space bar, instead just pausing and going on to the next word. It's pretty magical. Like any keyboard under iOS 8, you get suggestions for words as you type. Sometimes this works well, sometimes not. The Adaptxt keyboard learns from your typing and suggestions get smarter over time.
The keyboard supports custom gestures, text shortcuts, and a variety of keyboard layouts like QWERTY, QWERTZ, AZERTY and more.
I liked using the keyboard and found it very capable. The non-English keyboards are happily not stored in the app, but are a download away keeping things compact. I have to say I was pretty down on the whole idea of swipe typing, but now that I am used to it, I prefer it as a way to enter text.
The Adaptxt Keyboard is a winner and I love the free price. The app requires iOS 8 or later and is universal. The only weak part of the third party keyboard experience is Apple. iOS 8 had some troubles with third party keyboards and 8.0.2 was supposed to fix those issues. I still have issues like having the default keyboard vanish or be inconsistent across applications. I've seen the same problem in the beta of iOS 8.1. I'm sure those things will get ironed out, and I urge people to try some of these keyboards and see if they enhance the iOS user experience.
