iOS keyboard
Ranked 4 of 12 keyboard apps by recommenders
Recommended for reliable tap typing, accurate swipe typing and built-in multilingual support, though many critics report autocorrect and key errors that have worsened over time.
Recommended for reliable tap typing, accurate swipe typing and built-in multilingual support, though many critics report autocorrect and key errors that have worsened over time.
210 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 28
- criticize it
- 182
- approval share
- 13%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 10 years
Median of the 9 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 28 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.1 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Settings tweaks noticeably improve typing
“If you turn off swipe or swift or whatever they call it the iOS default keyboard is much better”
Comment from 26 Jan 2026 in “Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android” “I have great results on the ios keyboard by simply making two changes to the keyboard settings”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “Apple, fix my keyboard before the timer ends or I'm leaving iPhone” “One thing that helped me a lot to fix the iPhone keyboard was turning off slide to type.”
Comment from 19 May 2026 in “New accessibility features powered by Apple Intelligence” - Comment from 11 Dec 2025 in “iPhone Typos? It's Not Just You – The iOS Keyboard Is Broken [video]”
- Comment from 2 Dec 2025 in “Don't push AI down our throats”
Reliable, accurate tap typing
“It works very reliably for me, and I've learned to type long prose on my phone quite well.”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “Apple, fix my keyboard before the timer ends or I'm leaving iPhone” “The autocorrect works, the keys I tap are right.”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “Apple, fix my keyboard before the timer ends or I'm leaving iPhone” “my thumb typing this flawlessly with one try”
Comment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Native Instant Space Switching on macOS” - Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “Apple, fix my keyboard before the timer ends or I'm leaving iPhone”
Swipe typing works well
“Apple's swipe to text is so good that I forget there's still work to be done in the space.”
Comment from 24 Jun 2026 in “FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model” “Well, iOS swipe keyboard is not that bad. I would not call it “permanent suffering”.”
Comment from 24 Jun 2026 in “FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model” “swipe to type works just fine on the native keyboard”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “Apple, fix my keyboard before the timer ends or I'm leaving iPhone” Preferred over other keyboards
“somehow it works even better than the keyboard for me most of the time”
Comment from 19 May 2026 in “New accessibility features powered by Apple Intelligence” “found a touch keyboard (fleksy) I liked as much as the iOS keyboard”
Comment from 16 Oct 2026 in “Apple routed a graphite pipe through the iPhone Duo's hinge to dissipate heat” “I prefer the iOS keyboard than over the Android ones.”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “Apple, fix my keyboard before the timer ends or I'm leaving iPhone”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Typing has degraded over time
“When I moved from a gs5 to an iPhone 7, I was amazed at how much better the typing experience was. But it has now gotten to a point where I feel like a drunk monkey would type better than I do.”
Comment from 14 Sep 2026 in “iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27” “Ive been really annoyed at my iphone keyboard recently because it seems like a slow drift of whatever optimized state it was in was getting slower and slower.”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux” “I swear Apple broke the iPhone keyboard permanently in like 2015. I don't know what it is, but I can't type reliably”
Comment from 12 Jan 2026 in “The struggle of resizing windows on macOS Tahoe” - Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “Apple, fix my keyboard before the timer ends or I'm leaving iPhone”
- Comment from 12 Dec 2025 in “iPhone Typos? It's Not Just You – The iOS Keyboard Is Broken [video]”
Autocorrect replaces words unexpectedly
“its awful, awful repeated "corrections" it applies”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “Apple, fix my keyboard before the timer ends or I'm leaving iPhone” “iOS being absolutely unable to detect which language I'm currently writing in and automatically replacing words in one language to another”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “Apple, fix my keyboard before the timer ends or I'm leaving iPhone” “their random generator keeps replacing perfectly fine words _and the words before them_ with random crap that makes no sense.”
Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “Apple, fix my keyboard before the timer ends or I'm leaving iPhone” - Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “Apple, fix my keyboard before the timer ends or I'm leaving iPhone”
Keys register the wrong letters
“how close they put "enter" or "@" to space on the right side, so when you type with both hands you keep hitting those when you want to type a space”
Comment from 11 Dec 2025 in “iPhone Typos? It's Not Just You – The iOS Keyboard Is Broken [video]” “Now I feel that it is constant exercise in frustration as I will hit a letter and the keyboard will decide to pick the letter next to it.”
Comment from 11 Dec 2025 in “iPhone Typos? It's Not Just You – The iOS Keyboard Is Broken [video]” “deleting when I meant to space, putting an I instead of K and a bunch of other little things like thinks instead of things”
Comment from 12 Dec 2025 in “iPhone Typos? It's Not Just You – The iOS Keyboard Is Broken [video]” Cursor placement hard to control
“Substituting touch to select instead of touch to move cursor was a genuinely awful decision that now makes typing a constant chore”
Comment from 12 Dec 2025 in “iPhone Typos? It's Not Just You – The iOS Keyboard Is Broken [video]” “It is so painful to move the cursor to one specific letter that I frequently just erase everything and start over.”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “Apple, fix my keyboard before the timer ends or I'm leaving iPhone”
Other keyboard apps people recommend
The four most recommended other keyboard apps, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gboard | 59 | 43 | 58% | 10 | — | — |
| FUTO Keyboard | 51 | 22 | 70% | 12 | 1 yr4 owners | Approved |
| FUTO Swipe | 40 | 18 | 69% | 1 | — | — |
| iOS keyboardThis page | 28 | 182 | 13% | 8 | 10 yrs9 owners | — |
| Microsoft SwiftKey | 21 | 31 | 40% | 8 | 8 yrs7 owners | — |
What people said
40 of the 234 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“found a touch keyboard (fleksy) I liked as much as the iOS keyboard”
“When I moved from a gs5 to an iPhone 7, I was amazed at how much better the typing experience was. But it has now gotten to a point where I feel like a drunk monkey would type better than I do.”
“Ive been really annoyed at my iphone keyboard recently because it seems like a slow drift of whatever optimized state it was in was getting slower and slower.”
“the native swift keyboard recognizes which language I'm swifting in”
“Well, iOS swipe keyboard is not that bad. I would not call it “permanent suffering”.”
“Apple's swipe to text is so good that I forget there's still work to be done in the space.”
“One thing that helped me a lot to fix the iPhone keyboard was turning off slide to type.”
“somehow it works even better than the keyboard for me most of the time”
“my thumb typing this flawlessly with one try”
“The behavior of the iOS keyboard showcases how there must not be many decision-making people who communicate in multiple languages.”
“their random generator keeps replacing perfectly fine words _and the words before them_ with random crap that makes no sense.”
“tap typing works a bazillion times better”
“It is so painful to move the cursor to one specific letter that I frequently just erase everything and start over.”
“I enjoy the plausible deniability afforded by the iOS keyboard”
“It works very reliably for me, and I've learned to type long prose on my phone quite well.”
“swipe to type works just fine on the native keyboard”
“iOS being absolutely unable to detect which language I'm currently writing in and automatically replacing words in one language to another”
“a big feature is so comprehensively broken that it’s hard, from the outside, to break it down into specific flaws.”
“It looks like a physical keyboard and the constant flicking between upper/lowercase is distracting and annoying”
“i use the apple keyboard every day, and it's fine?”
“The keyboard always works great for me.”
“The autocorrect works, the keys I tap are right.”
“I have great results on the ios keyboard by simply making two changes to the keyboard settings”
“I prefer the iOS keyboard than over the Android ones.”
“its awful, awful repeated "corrections" it applies”
“The keyboard, specifically the Autocorrect, is fucked and has progressively worsened over the past 5 years.”
“If you turn off swipe or swift or whatever they call it the iOS default keyboard is much better”
“I swear Apple broke the iPhone keyboard permanently in like 2015. I don't know what it is, but I can't type reliably”
“In the Settings, there is built in text expansion support”
“Why would it go from what felt like a predictable error to what feels like someone moving the keys around?”
“The auto-capitalisation of Apple trademarked phrases like Liquid Glass and Apple Intelligence is what really drives me round the bend.”
“deleting when I meant to space, putting an I instead of K and a bunch of other little things like thinks instead of things”
“Substituting touch to select instead of touch to move cursor was a genuinely awful decision that now makes typing a constant chore”
“Multilingual typing is a godsend.”
“how close they put "enter" or "@" to space on the right side, so when you type with both hands you keep hitting those when you want to type a space”
“I feeeeeel like this helped me but didn’t solve the problem fully.”
“Now I feel that it is constant exercise in frustration as I will hit a letter and the keyboard will decide to pick the letter next to it.”
“it needs to be more stable than this”
“the iOS keyboard is just fine”
“I found it made a big improvement for me.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.