Its finally here!

This past week I got the opportunity to try out the much anticipated Microsoft Word Flow Keyboard for IOS. (A bit of a mouthful). A lot has been said about this keyboard and what I promised to deliver like its unique one handed typing system which is much needed in this economy of ever growing smartphones.

After the release of the Hub Keyboard by Microsoft my hopes for the Word Flow plumetted. The Hub is focused on making content such as your clipboard, contacts and cloud-based documents easier to access through your keyboard. It came with the bland styling of the Windows mobile stock keyboard and though the functions they touted worked well the rest was a stock standard let down.

Then comes in the Word Flow Keyboard.

The greatest strength of this offering is how Windows have managed to incorporate our favorite features from the iOS keyboard and other third party keyboards. Its like the native iOS keyboard and Swiftkey’s love child.

Its the small things that get you such as the way the autocorrect works. Similar to iOS tapping backspace after a word has been autocorrected allows you to revert to the previously typed word. Its response speed is up to standard and my favorite feature which a lot of people were skeptical about is the one handed typing mode. Simply sliding down on the widgets on top corners of the keyboard shifts it to the curved one handed mode which works very well and all the features found in the full keynote function just as well here although it takes a little practice to get used to.

Another nice feature is the swipe system which uses an eye catching dot trail and is pretty accurate. In the settings menu you can see the words per minute count clearly stated at the top of the screen.

I have to say I am not so crazy about the theme which at the moment allows you to have an image background and choose color accents. I’d love to see more here. I opted to stick to the dark theme.

All in all a great keyboard alternative from Microsoft which doesn’t feel like another android keyboard ported to iOS.