iOS 8 Keyboard Finally Catches Up With Android

Today is Apple day with the company hosting its annual WWDC event in California, and one announcement (of many) should make millions and millions of iOS users extremely happy. We’re talking about the keyboard of course, as Apple aims to reduce all those auto-correct fails that happen on a daily basis.

iOS 8 was finally announced today after months of waiting, and one feature that is finally coming to iOS after years and years of being on Android is predictive text, or a suggestive keyboard. The all-new “reinvented” iOS 8 Keyboard has a new feature called Quicktype, which aims to make typing on iOS 8 faster and easier than ever.

Read: How to Get the iOS 8 Beta Right Now

Another major announcement is iOS 8 will now support 3rd party keyboards. Think Swype, SwiftKey, or any of the dozens of amazing alternatives Android has enjoyed for years. These will finally be coming to Apple devices so users can soon enjoy and download a keyboard worth using.

There’s plenty of awesome new features arriving in iOS 8, but the keyboard is a big one. It’s one of the key aspects of a smartphone considering how much we all text, browse the web, lookup movie times or Netflix videos and more. Typing has continued to improve on Android, but Apple kept it locked down, until now.

Apple is calling Quicktype a brand new keyboard that will give contextual based auto-corrections. This isn’t just predictive text where it assumes the next word in a sentence, but it uses context, and will even know who you’re talking to. So Quicktype will suggest more appropriate terms or words if you’re texting your boss or a co-worker, and be more casual or fun if it’s a friend or your wife. Basically learning your language and style on a per person basis.

Above is just one example of many that were shown off on screen. Sharing how Apple’s new iOS 8 keyboard won’t just predict words in a sentence, but also suggest answers to a text. Being asked about dinner and a movie the Quicktype keyboard will instantly recognize this and give one-tap keyboard answers for dinner, A movie, or not sure.

Android has been enjoying third party keyboards, predictive and suggestive text, and Swype keyboards for years, and these are all finally coming to Apple users with iOS 8. It isn’t available just yet, but when it arrives in the fall you can bet all the top-tier and favorite Android keyboards will all be on board, and readily available for you iPhone users.

Read: iOS 8: What Devices Will Get the New Update

Meanwhile, they’ve added a few other little tricks to the keyboard aside from the predictions. There’s now much quicker access to speech and audio sharing, called Tap to Talk. This is a new feature of the iOS 8 keyboard that will offer a small popup to add audio to a message, voice snippets for emails, or whatever else the user has in mind.

iMessage received an awesome new feature today too. Those group messages that you often enjoy being in, but more often than not are just getting irritated by. You can now leave those. Instead of feeling obligated to use the new Quicktype keyboard to deliver a snarky reply you can now leave group messages, or mute them if you’d like.

There are tons of new features with iOS 8, and stay tuned as we break down all the news and announcements.