alternative keyboards

SteelSeries is well known around Apple circles for its iOS and Apple TV gaming controllers, but the company specializes in other gaming-related hardware ventures as well, such as mice, headsets and keyboards.

After browsing SteelSeries’ site to find some information on its popular Nimbus controller, I stumbled upon its keyboard line. Anyone that knows me understands that I have a special affinity for mechanical keyboards, and that’s exactly what I found on the SteelSeries website.

The Danish hardware manufacturer’s marquee mechanical keyboard, the SteelSeries Apex M800, is not your ordinary mechanical keyboard. It’s a fully customizable, gaming-centric experience that lets you assign an overwhelming variety of functionality and colors to individual keys. While the Apex M800 ships configured for Windows, it’s fully compatible with the Mac, and even comes with OS X key cap replacements.
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The Financial Times is reporting that Microsoft has purchased popular third-party keyboard maker SwiftKey for $250 million. While SwiftKey is most known for their predictive keyboard, the acquisition is more of an artificial intelligence play for Microsoft.

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The popular Fleksy keyboard for Android will be making its way to iOS 8 this fall, according to the company behind the software. While the keyboard isn’t quite ready for a public beta, the developers say it will be ready by the release of the next-generation mobile OS.

Keeping in line with today’s update for the Android version, the iPhone version is on schedule to ship with support with over 40 languages.

The Fleksy keyboard has been available on iOS in the form of a standalone app for some time now, but with iOS 8’s support for third-party keyboards, it will finally be available systemwide. The native keyboard has already been demoed by the Fleksy developers earlier this year.