Tech Trend 247

When Apple announced iOS 8 back in June of 2014, the addition of third-party keyboards was one of the most-hyped features. But though developers have come up with some fantastically creative (and a few really useful) keyboard apps in almost two years since the launch of iOS 8, iOS keyboards as a whole have been disappointing.

Many have been gimmicky, nearly all have been slow and unfortunate iOS limitations keep them from being a true replacement to the iOS stock keyboard. And if keyboards as a whole have been disappointing, GIF keyboards have been notable only for being underwhelming.

Luckily, GIF startup Giphy is launching Giphy Keys, its own standalone keyboard app, on Tuesday, which offers one of the best experiences we've seen in a GIF keyboard app on iOS.

While many other GIF keyboard apps replace the iOS keyboard with GIF thumbnails you copy and paste into iMessage and other apps, Giphy Keys cleverly puts its search and discovery tools on top of a keyboard so you don't need to constantly switch between typing text and looking for the perfect reaction GIFs. 

It may sound like a small difference but give how clunky it still is to switch between keyboards on iOS (are you listening, Apple?) it's a refreshing move.

"There’s a ton of third-party GIF keyboards out there and we actually power a lot of them, but in terms of the UI [user interface], we noticed a lot of them are really similar in that it’s all GIFs right there under your thumb — and that’s great, but the intention is to switch in and out of your keyboard," Giphy's Director of Mobile Products Jillian Fisher tells Mashable. 

"It’s a pretty frustrating experience, especially if you have more than one [keyboard app] installed, we wanted to avoid that situation where you feel like you're trapped in that keyboard."

Instead, the app has a few different sections at the top of the keyboard you can use to find GIFs: search, which allows you to search Giphy's entire library; reactions, which surfaces popular reaction GIFs; explore, which breaks down GIFs by topic; favorites; recents; and a magic 8 ball section with some uniquely Giphy options that may be familiar to power users of Slack. 

That's because the app's 8 ball section borrows some of the hidden commands you can use with Giphy in Slack, including weather, which finds a GIF relevant to current weather conditions; text, which creates an animated GIF out of the text you type; and magic 8 ball, which will answer yes/no questions in the form of a randomly selected GIF. (I've been using the app for a few days now and can confirm the features are as fun as they sound.)

Of course, close observers shouldn't be surprised that the Giphy team would be the one to finally make a decent GIF keyboard — the startup is pretty much killing it right now — but it's still refreshing to see a third-keyboard app that is more fun than frustrating. 

Giphy Keys is iOS only for now, but Giphy says an Android app is in the pipeline, though there's no word when it might be available.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.