Microsoft has released a new keyboard for iPhone and iPad with Office 365 integration and support for different ‘extensions’. Extensions include the ability to search for documents and contacts right from the keyboard and more.
Hub keyboard allows users to quickly access information that would otherwise require app switching. Users can perform different functions on the fly such as search OneDrive and SharePoint documents, search their on-device contacts, translate their typed message instantaneously to the language of their choice as well as access previously copied texts from the clipboard.
The idea behind the keyboard is very good but during testing, I noticed that the performance is not so good to use it as a replacement for the default keyboard. We can’t blame Microsoft for this as Apple has not improved third party keyboard integrations at all since they rolled out the feature. Not only is typing performance slow, the keyboard takes longer to appear when you tap on a text field in iOS.
For the features that the Hub Keyboard provides, it is a very useful solution. It is available as a free download in the App Store for iPhone and iPad.
Note: Hub Keyboard was released for Android back in February but it is not available for Windows Phone/Mobile 10.
