There are plenty of onscreen keyboard options available at the moment, such as those bundled by default with your operating system, and third-party options from the likes of Fleksy, Swype, SwiftKey, and etc. However could Apple be interested in giving their iOS keyboard a makeover? Maybe, maybe not, but their acquisition of Dryft has certainly raised some eyebrows.
According to the folks at TechCrunch, they have learnt that Apple acquired the keyboard app sometime last year. This is seemingly confirmed as the company’s chief technology officer Randy Marsden now lists his current job on LinkedIn as being the iOS Keyboard Manager at Apple. As expected Apple gave TechCrunch the same boilerplate statement when asked to comment on the matter.
It is unclear as to what Apple’s plans are for the app. Perhaps they are thinking about taking some of its features and applying it to iOS, or maybe they hired Marsden just for his skills and might not have anything to do with the app whatsoever, but it could be worth keeping an eye out for anyway.
For those unfamiliar with Dryft, it’s a keyboard app designed mainly for tablets. Its keys only appear when users begin typing on the screen, thus allowing the user to enjoy the contents of their screen fully without the keyboard taking up a lot of screen real estate.