4 smartphone keyboard add-ons that you need to try

It has ever been easier to say what you think. There are words, of course, but you can now employ emojis or GIFs, or — if you are using the latest version of iOS — send a text that presents itself in a deluge of balloons, or an explosion of confetti. You can send screenshots and selfies and share music.

Indeed, in the circumstances, philistines might say that words are analogue tools for a digital world. This is unfair, of course, but the most pragmatic way to beat them is to join them: you need to download a souped-up keyboard that will reanimate the written word — or at least, your texts. Here are the ones to download now.

Gboard

USP: Gboard is a multitasker — it’s hard to pick just one of its star functions. Add the keyboard to your iPhone (in the same way you added the emoji keyboard all those years ago) and you can share GIFs, use Google’s search engine and share a result (adding a new dimension to the comeback “let me just Google that for you”) and also use a Google Image search.

The real-time translation feature is fun but the innovative Glide Typing function is the most useful: instead of hitting the individual keys when you want to type a word just swipe in the direction of each letter and the keyboard then suggests words you might want to use.

It’s intelligent, too, suggesting words that are consistent with the context of the sentence. I mis-type a few times but once I’ve got the hang of it it is quicker than regular typing. It also autocorrects my text more accurately than my regular iPhone keyboard does. So no texting accidental rude words.

Speed: The Gboard performs well on the control sentence (“the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog”). Using Gliding Typing (and after a bit of practice) I tapped the words out more quickly than I would on my normal keyboard. The Gboard incorporates spaces automatically (saving half-seconds here and there).

Emoji literacy: As on the iPhone, if you type a word with a corresponding emoji using the Gboard, that emoji will pop up as a suggested replacement for the word. It’s just easier.

Fleksy

USP: Fleksy boldly bills itself as “the fastest keyboard in the world” and has reportedly won medals, but I could barely get it off the ground. My iOS is fully updated — nerd klaxon! — so it wasn’t quite clear what wasn’t working, but it kept crashing.

In theory, as well as speed, it offers “incredible autocorrect” (it examines typing patterns to assess what you might have meant to type), a GIF library (seemingly standard), and an option to resize the keyboard depending on how much space on your screen you want it to consume. To delete words you can swipe left anywhere on the screen, which might save some time, and you can make popular keys different colours.

Speed: It crashed before I could try the control sentence. I tried again — many times — but it kept closing down.

Emoji literacy: Respectable, say reports, if you can get it to work. It syncs with the existing emoji keyboard so you can use all your favourite codified symbols. Smiley face.

RainbowKey

USP: Pure fun. You can create your own stylised keyboard or use one of the pre-set themes: I opted for “Electric” and it made it look like I was at the helm of a spacecraft. You can tailor fonts and its autocorrect function was good — it suggests four or five likely words, including one emoji, as soon as you hit a key.

Speed: Not much faster than a regular keyboard, but the expansive autocorrect might save you some time. Plus the aesthetics make texting a game not a chore.

Emoji literacy: Fully integrated into the keyboard. Plus, hold down the emoji icon for a second and it pulls up five common emojis for extra speedy use (heart, heart eyes, crying-laughing, crying and blowing a kiss, if you’re interested).

Swype

USP: Like Gboard, this is another keyboard that predicts words based on your swiping habits, but the most interesting feature is “Living Language”, which allows you to add new words to your dictionary as you (or the internet) coins them, and will not try to autocorrect them — unlike the infuriating iPhone keyboard. To clarify, once and for all, I never mean “ducking”.

Speed: Using the swiping function I got foiled on the second word, “brown” — which Swype kept insisting was “brief”, “Brita” or once, “Brian”. Got there in the end but Gboard was definitely slicker.

Emoji literacy: Illiterate, sadly. It does not incorporate the emoji keyboard so you have to rely on old-fashioned words. OMG.

Follow Phoebe Luckhust: @phoebeluckhurst