By far the most exciting thing about iOS 8 — imho — is the side-door it opens into Apple’s walled garden to allow keyboard app makers to come on in for the first time.

No longer is it true that outlandish Qwertys with a twist are barred from Apple’s kingdom. If you want a keyboard that writes in GIFs, well now you can. Or one that auto predicts emoji so you don’t have to flick through all that emoji art looking for the right combination of chips + burger + pizza + beer + beer + beer + milkshake + spew face. Sorted.

Sure, the native iOS keyboard hasn’t gone away. In fact it’s had some TLC of its own (with a new predictive layer sitting atop the keys, called Quick Type). But the iOS user can now finally choose to play away from home when it comes to typing — as, of course, Android users have always been able to.

It’s worth flagging up that Apple has a slightly different permissions structure when it comes to third party keyboards than Android. So read on for the lowdown on the exact keyboard permissions you are granting when you enable third party keyboards on your iOS 8 device.

But first, a quick re-cap on how to get started with adding a new keyboard to your iOS 8 device…

iOS 8 keyboards

Adding third party keyboards to iOS 8

So how do you get a new keyboard on iOS 8? First you need to find a keyboard you like on the App Store. There are plenty to choose from. Here’s a by-no-means-exhaustive round-up of nine alternatives I prepared earlier, for example. Once you’ve hit on something you like and downloaded it, you’ll need to add the keyboard to your device within the mainline iOS settings interface.

The path to follow here is Settings > General > Keyboard > Keyboards > Add New Keyboard… You’ll then be shown a list which should include the keyboard app you just downloaded. Hit that to add it to your active keyboards. If another arrow is displayed next to the name of the added keyboard you will be able to tap on it again to reach another settings screen where you can ‘Allow Full Access’. This enables an app’s full feature-set — but more of that below, in the permissions section. It’s not necessary to allow Full Access to add a new keyboard, but the functionality you get may be truncated if you don’t.

Given the various menu layers involved in adding third party keyboards to iOS 8 this is undoubtedly a rather convoluted process. It’s almost as if Apple is trying to bury the option to play away from the native keyboard. But, in their defense, it’s probably not the sort of setting that should be too easy to toggle, given how core the keyboard is to the overall experience. Having less techie iOS users accidentally switching on a new keyboard and not knowing how to get back to the familiar native Qwerty is a scenario Apple is obviously keen to avoid.

To switch between keyboards when typing something you generally tap the globe icon at the lower left of the keyboard layout. Some keyboard makers combine this key with other function keys so you may need to hold down a key to access the toggle. Tapping on the globe on Apple’s native keyboard will switch to the next keyboard you have enabled. Or holding the globe key down will bring up a menu overview of all your keyboards so you can tap once to choose the one you want to use. At this early stage, the keyboard toggling interface can still be a bit glitchy. Sometimes keyboards appear to cycle by themselves so you might find that enabling fewer keyboards at a time is more manageable.

iOS keyboard permissions: What does ‘Allow Full Access’ Mean?

Now, not all third party iOS 8 keyboards are equal in terms of the permissions they require to function. Some can function purely within the isolated sandbox of the keyboard interface itself, while others ask to be able to reach outside that sandbox — and this is where the ‘Allow Full Access’ setting, mentioned above, comes in.

The reason a keyboard app might be asking for Full Access is either to connect to the Internet — for instance to enable a cloud service feature within the app — or to talk to another app on the device, such as its own container app. Apple’s guidelines for developers of keyboard software implies their app should offer basic functions (what it terms “normal duties”) without requiring Full Access. Apple goes on to stress that Full Access brings increased “responsibilities” to the developer when it comes to user trust. This is because a networked keyboard can technically be used to capture keystroke data. Which poses a clear privacy threat to the user.

SwiftKey iOS 8

So, to be clear, if you provide Full Access to a third party keyboard you are technically giving that app the ability to capture and transmit your keystroke data (aka the stuff you type) elsewhere. Although reputable keyboard apps will either avoid capturing this data at all, or have clear privacy policies setting out exactly what they are doing with any captured data (perhaps using it to improve the product experience, for instance), and how they are safeguarding your privacy if they are capturing data — by, for instance, anonymizing and aggregating data if they are sharing it, and actively avoiding capturing data from sensitive fields such as password boxes or credit card data forms.

If you don’t like the sound of any keystroke data being captured you can avoid this scenario altogether by not granting Full Access. Although it’s worth noting that if you do later toggle this setting on, the app may be able to send retrospective data, so it’s not a very fine grained control mechanism.

Still, it’s a neat feature of iOS 8 is that it does allows users to choose whether to grant third party keyboard makers networked permission at all — albeit, denying a keyboard app Full Access may well truncate its functionality (notably the SwiftKey keyboard offers limited functionality if Full Access is denied, for example). But at least the user has the means to manage third party keyboards via this master switch.

If you do not allow Full Access a third party keyboard app can still — and should — offer basic keyboard functions but will remain sandboxed on your device and can’t, therefore, be keylogging what you are typing.

So why all the iOS warning screens about keylogging?

Another thing to note about Apple’s implementation of third party keyboards on iOS 8 is the number of user warnings it throws up around the type of data keyboards can capture. Underneath the list of third party keyboards Apple provides the following warning: “When using one of these keyboards, the keyboard can access all the data you type”. It also links to a far longer explanation page detailing “Third-Party Keyboards & Privacy”.