Introducing Next Keyboard
The keyboard is the most used, yet least considered, “app”. Our smartphones would be useless without keyboards. As we realized that, we took it upon ourselves to make the perfect keyboard for the iPhone. It’s been a little over twelve months since we started building Next. We couldn’t be happier or more excited to share it with the world.
Say hello to Next, a keyboard that’s built for iOS users by iOS users.
It wouldn’t have been possible without Kickstarter (Next was the most funded app), and a community of 10,000 iPhone lovers from around the world.
Next is a beautiful keyboard for iPhone that works as great as it looks. It comes fully loaded with lightning fast editing, predictive typing, instant access to all the emojis you love plus more, playful stickers (tacos anyone?), and stunning themes.
We wanted to create a keyboard that solved some of the common issues iOS users have trouble with. We’ve tackled the shift key head on, and we’ve developed an easier way for you to correct mistypes. (For the design enthusiasts, we provided special attention to visual affordance through icon design and auditory feedback to let users know what case they’re on, We also developed a prominent space bar cursor feature for quick editing.)
We also know that most people really like emojis, so we’ve made it easier to use them in messages. Emojis have never been more accessible. . We auto-suggest them based on what you’re typing, provide one-tap access to an integrated emoji keyboard, plus added new categories like country flags. Our “huge” emoji stickers are simply to die for. We also created 60 original stickers (tacos, anyone?) to take visual communication to the next level.
But we didn’t stop there.
Most of our time was spent on building our next word prediction and autocorrect engine. This is what’s at the heart of the Next Keyboard experience. The more you use Next, the more it learns from your typing to suggest the words you use most. Even your favorite fleek slizzang, yo!
There’s still quite an extensive and feature-rich roadmap for Next which we’ll be rolling out over the following months including the next phase of our prediction engine and swipe typing. We’re tirelessly building for a future where the Next Keyboard becomes a springboard into a new world of effortless communication. Stay tuned.
Who Made Next?
We’re the team behind Tiny Hearts, an award winning app studio and makers of the top-selling apps like Wake (the #1 iOS alarm clock according to Lifehacker), and Quick Fit(featured in an Apple Ad).
As a small independent studio that lives and breathes everything iOS, we wanted to build the perfect keyboard for the iPhone to enhance our own messaging experience. We quickly discovered that it was a genuine need for thousands of other iOS fans.
As our most ambitious project, we knew we had to double down on resources and that we couldn’t do it alone. This led us to reach out to other iPhone lovers. Our community is now over 10,000 strong. With a little help fromKickstarter,Reddit, andProduct Hunt, we were able to pull it off and really build something meaningful together.
The perfect keyboard for iPhone is here. This is just the beginning. We plan to spin out Next as it’s own company, with the mission of taking a stab at an AI-enabled future that will make it easier to connect with others and the world around us. We’d love to have you along for the journey.
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