As a non-native speaker, I relied heavily on Grammarly for years. I couldn’t write a simple text without its proofreading capabilities. Recently, though, I found myself turning to ChatGPT with a simple prompt: “proofread this.” It did a much better job, but the constant copy-pasting was a hassle. I tried various AI keyboards, but most were just Grammarly copycats—constantly nudging me about comma placements or suggesting rewrites because my message “wasn’t clear.” All I wanted was a tool that would handle this for me, effortlessly.
I even started counting the clicks it took to proofread a simple text—21 clicks, to be exact. And still, the result felt off, often using the Portuguese text structures that didn’t quite fit.
So, about two months ago, I decided to experiment with iOS Keyboard Extensions to build my own solution. I just wanted a single button on top of my keyboard to proofread my text. One click and bam, done. The feature itself was simple to build, the real challenge was creating a good keyboard. When you build a keyboard extension on iOS, you have to design the entire keyboard. That’s when I discovered KeyboardKit, an open-source project by Daniel Saidi, that saved me months of development.
But in this space, there aren’t many competitive barriers to building keyboards apps—there are hundreds, if not thousands, of these apps out there. Only a few make real money (millions/month), while the rest flood the App Store. I knew that without a hefty marketing budget, this would be a fun personal experiment, possibly leading to something else down the line.
I was happy with my MVP, to me was better than Grammarly already, so I started adding more features: keys that could convert a text to a casual tone, shortening it, generating pickup lines, even creating a “speak like a tech mogul” key. 🤦, I went overboard and ended up with over 150 new keys on my keyboard.
Last week, I launched it to some close friends and ESL students to get their feedback. The response was full of amazing ideas, but the keyboard experience and autocorrection still lag behind the native iOS keyboard.
Then, I had a thought: when Apple inevitably launches their LLM, they’ll likely integrate a native writing tool. And when they do, it’s going to be a game-changer—at least for someone like me. Fast forward, and here we are: iOS 18 will include a native proofreading tool across both desktop and mobile. One click, and bam—your text is proofread everywhere, without any hassle.
And that’s just one of the new features in iOS 18. If you’re eager to explore Apple Intelligence and other new tools, download the iOS 18 beta.
But if you want to give Smart Keys a try, the second-best writing tool 🥸, download it here: https://smartkeys.so/
That’s it, I’m left wondering, with barriers to entry lower than ever, what will separate leaders from the pack in AI tech?
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