Choose your favorite iPhone keyboard UI for every situation with Keyboard Controller

As many smartphone users already know, one of the major advantages to using a software-based keyboard as opposed to a hardware-based keyboard is that the interface can dynamically change depending on what you might be doing on your device. For example, a web browser’s keyboard might display more URL-centric input methods while a number input interface’s keyboard might display only numbers rather than the full alphabet.

iOS developer Tomasz Poliszuk knew that some of these keyboard interfaces could be helpful in more places than one, and unfortunately, Apple doesn’t provide users with any way of choosing which dynamic keyboard interface appears where. With that in mind, a newly released and free jailbreak tweak dubbed Keyboard Controller was conceived.

The screenshot examples above depict a series of different keyboards that you can enable for specific situations on your device, depending on what it is that you’re doing. In some cases, access to the “@” key on the first page might be more useful to you, or perhaps you want to see the “.com” option more frequently even when you aren’t in a web browser. These are all factors to consider when deciding whether to install Keyboard Controller.

Once installed, Keyboard Controller adds a dedicated preference pane to the Settings app where you can configure the tweak to your liking:

Here, you can:

• Enable or disable Keyboard Controller on demand
• Choose between default, light, or dark UI styles
• Choose between the default or a disabled Siri dictation button
• Configure the keyboard types you want to use for various situations
• Configure the return key behavior for various situations
• Configure swipe to dismiss keyboard:
  • Default
  • Disabled
  • Immediately
  • Interactive
• Test your keyboard selection settings
• Reset all settings to their defaults

Digging deeper, you’ll find more options to configure in the Edit Keyboard Type and Edit Return Key Type preference panes, which we’ll show you below:

Edit Keyboard Type

Here, you can choose which keyboard style appears under the certain circumstances:

• When the normal keyboard would usually appear
• When the numbers and punctuation keyboard would usually appear
• When the URL keyboard would usually appear
• When the email address keyboard would usually appear
• When the ASCII capable keyboard would usually appear
• When the web search keyboard would usually appear
• When the alphabet keyboard would usually appear
• When the name phone pad keyboard would usually appear
• When the Twitter keyboard would usually appear
• When the number pad would usually appear
• When the decimal pad would usually appear
• When the phone pad would usually appear
• When the ASCII capable number pad would usually appear

Edit Return Button Type

Here, you can choose which return button style appears under certain circumstances:

• When the default return button would usually appear
• When the go button would usually appear
• When the Google button would usually appear
• When the join button would usually appear
• When the next button would usually appear
• When the route button would usually appear
• When the search button would usually appear
• When the send button would usually appear
• When the Yahoo button would usually appear
• When the done button would usually appear
• When the emergency call button would usually appear
• When the continue button would usually appear

As you’ve probably ascertained for yourself, Keyboard Controller offers no shortage of configuration for the end user, allowing jailbreakers to essentially choose which keyboard and return button style appears when and where. Moreover, the tweak provides other useful options, such as overriding the dark/light mode feature and disabling Dictation, among other things.

Those interested in giving Keyboard Controller a try can download the tweak for free from the BigBoss repository via their favorite package manager. The tweak supports jailbroken iOS 13 devices and is open source on the developer’s GitHub page.

Do you plan to take advantage of Keyboard Controller? Let us know why or why not in the comments section below.