A first look at Fleksy for iOS 8

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One of the cool new features available in iOS 8 is the ability to set third-party keyboard apps as the default on your iPhone and iPad. I was quick to jump on that bandwagon. Fleksy Keyboard – Happy Typing was my first third-party default because, frankly, I wanted my keyboard to look like a candy store. It is a gesture-based, colorful, super fast keyboard for iOS 8 with autocorrect and word suggestions. I’ve been playing with it for about a day now and I’ve got some hands-on experience to pass along to you.

Once you’ve set the Fleksy keyboard as your default, go back to the app and customize the look. You can make the letters larger or smaller and set the keys to “minimal” or “spacebar.” In minimal mode, the only keys you will see are the letters. You’ll have to use gestures to access the symbols and space bar.

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The app comes with six different colored keyboards, black, dark blue, white, bright green, pink, and yellow. You can unlock six more colors for an additional $0.99.

Thanks to a comprehensive autocorrect, no matter what mistake you’ve made, the app will correct it for you. If the corrected word isn’t what you meant to write, you can swipe one finger downward on the keyboard to rotate between different suggested words.

Fleksy officially broke the Guinness World Record for the fastest touch-screen text messaging, so its speed is unmistakable – if you can get used to the gesture-based typing.

When it came to swiping to space and swiping to delete, I was right on top of it, I got used to the gestures pretty fast. Typing with nothing but letters and swiping gestures can really be fun. When it came to adding punctuation, it was a bit more complicated. To access punctuation, you have to swipe twice on the keyboard, which creates a period automatically. Then, you can switch between symbols by swiping downward with one finger. If the next symbol in line happens to be the punctuation you wanted, you’re in luck. Otherwise, you’ll be swiping four or five times just to get to a semi-colon.

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If you use the spacebar keyboard, it is easier to access the punctuation, but takes up more room on your screen. The spacebar keyboard also displays the shift key, the number key, delete, and return. You can easily switch between spacebar and minimal Keyboard by swiping up or down with two fingers.

If you have multiple language keyboards set in iOS, you can quickly switch between them with Fleksy simply by swiping left or right on the space bar. You can also switch between any default keyboard by touching and holding the numbers key.

I am really enjoying this keyboard. I love the way it looks and get a kick out of the minimal keyboard style. The auto-correct is practically magical. Unlike the Apple keyboard, It almost always adds the word I meant to type. It’s like it knows what I’m thinking.

Gesture-based typing is a lot of fun once you get the hang of it. I’m still working on getting down the gestures (I keep forgetting whether to swipe up or down). If you are looking for a fast productivity keyboard, this may not be right for you. However, it is definitely worth downloading if you are looking for a colorful and fun new way to type.

Fleksy Keyboard is available on the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch for $0.99. Download it in the App Store today.

Have you started using Fleksy? What do you think of it? Let us know in the comments below.