---
title: Nintype is still the best iOS keyboard
description:
slug: nintype
date: May 22, 2023
---

Describing Nintype is a challenge. Here's a the demo video from it's launch back in 2014:

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    style={{
      width: '100%',
      height: '100%',
    }}
    src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/M6DS9Gyf2LM"
    title="YouTube video player"
    frameBorder="0"
    allow="clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share"
    allowFullScreen
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<small style={{ display: 'block', textAlign: 'center' }}>
  <i>"the true touch typing experience"</i>
</small>

Essentially, Nintype is a keyboard that enables you to _swipe and tap_ with both hands at the same time.
If you're typing "there", you'd swipe the `th` with your right hand, and tap or swipe the `ere` with your left.
It's such elegant and obvious next step for swipe keyboards it's incredible to me that no alternatives exist.
It's really does feel like magic; see how my friend texted me when we were first discovering it (apologies for the expletives):

<img
  src="/blog/nintype/text.png"
  alt="Text contents: Dude, before yesterday I was trying to swipe whole words on nintype and it wouldn't work super well (like I could go super fast for a second, but make a ton of mistakes because my fingers just wouldn't move correctly in continuous motion) but I recently figured out how to combine tapping and swiping and now it's way fucking faster and better. I'm super fucking pumped, and you're the only nintype person who would understand.
I'm really fucking excited"
  style={{ maxWidth: '350px', margin: 'auto' }}
/>

It's genius lies in a few things:

## Swipe and type

Nintype's true magic lies in it's ability to understand swiping and tapping with both fingers simultaneously.
If you need to double tap a word, like "I'll", you can swipe the first half of the word, and then double tap the "l" key to finish it.
It's a bit tricky to put into words, but it feels intuitive and unlocks a lot of speed. I can consistently reach 100 <abbr title="words per minute">WPM</abbr> with ~90-95% accuracy using Nintype.

## Customization

Nintype has options for seemingly everything.
You can add custom shortcuts (such as auto filling your email or credit card number), customize (and disable) the colors/animations, and generally [rice](https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/wiki/themeing/dictionary#wiki_rice) the heck out of it.
Here's are two screenshots covering most of the menu options:

<div style={{ 
    display: 'flex',
    flexWrap: 'wrap',
    justifyContent: 'space-evenly',
    gap: 'var(--gap)',
    marginTop: 'var(--gap)',
    marginBottom: 'var(--gap)',
}}>
    <img
    src="/blog/nintype/settings.png"
    alt="Nintype settings showing"
    style={{ maxWidth: '350px', margin: 'auto' }}
    />

    <img
    src="/blog/nintype/settings-1.png"
    alt="Nintype keyboard showing"
    style={{ maxWidth: '350px', margin: 'auto', marginTop: 'var(--gap)' }}
    />

</div>

## Autospace

Autospace was the most difficult feature for me to embrace, and that's because I overused it.
I expected it to keep up with my typing speed, but it's not meant to do that; it waits for your pauses and then adds spaces. If you're typing quickly, you don't really pause.
Now, I leave it enabled and manually hit the space key when needed, especially when typing with one hand or taking my time, and I love it.

## Pins / shortcuts

Pins are a way to save text snippets and insert them by long-pressing a key.
I've saved my emails, phone number, and other frequently used text that iOS or Firefox mobile fail to autofill.

## It still works today

In a testament to it's great design and engineering, Nintype is functionally the same as it was in 2014 (minus a few small updates).
For some reason, all other keyboards only support single-swipe typing, and that's a shame.

You can find Nintype on the App Store [here](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nintype/id796959534).
If you use Android, I'm sorry &mdash; it seems like it was removed from the Play Store [sometime last year](https://www.reddit.com/r/nintype/comments/s4sx1b/looks_like_keyboard_69_nintype_has_been_removed/).
