Next Keyboard launched their Kickstarter project on December 12, 2014. The Toronto based company was looking to raise $10,000 CAD for a new keyboard app for iPhone and quickly surpassed that within just two days. At the time of writing they have more than $23.7K in funding with 36 days to go.
When i0S 8 came out Apple made custom keyboards possible. It inspired the team behind this project to design one that iPhone users would love! They’re packing this app with a bunch of cool features, including: swipe for typing, a cursor that you can drag left or right for easy editing, one tap emojis with the ability to easily scroll up and down, word prediction, emoji suggestions (based on your text), colorful themes, and a clearer shift function. That isn’t even all of them.
The team behind this campaign is Tiny Hearts software studio. They have launched several successful apps in the past – the Wake alarm clock, Quick Fit (featured in an Apple commercial), and Pocket Zoo, an educational app. The Next Keyboard app release is currently planned for February 2015. As noted on their Kickstarter page:
“Keyboards are much more complicated than they look and we want to get this right. At this point, we have an early beta version which means we’re 75% there. But it’s that last 25% that’s most challenging. With one big final push we can actually get this keyboard to those who want it as bad as we do.
For that to happen, we need to grow our team with experts in machine learning and natural language processing to help us build a more powerful engine for prediction, auto-correct, and swipe typing.”
Tiny Hearts has been collecting opinions from iPhone users since the beginning of this project, looking to online communities like Reddit for feedback and encouraging questions on their Kickstarter page and @NEXTkeyboard Twitter account.
Supporters can get the app for donations of $5, but they have a lot of other cool perks like early beta access to the app, emoji t-shirts, hoodies, and mugs, the team’s previous apps, and you can even have themes named after you! For those who take the privacy of their personal information seriously, the team assures backers there is nothing to worry about. They don’t collect your data and the keyboard does not require full access.
If you’re interested in the campaign I suggest you take a look at their Kickstarter page. They have a clever and amusing Kickstarter video that shows how all of the features work. As an added incentive for those who love the idea but maybe can’t afford to pledge, Tiny Hearts is giving out their past apps for free for those who share their project on social media.
