IOS 8 brings in Third-party Input method open

Absrtact: Open at Apple WWDC2014 Congress was mentioned many times, around this concept, the most exciting feature of iOS 8 is that the user calls for a long time to open the Third-party input method and the intelligent voice Input method is based on iOS system's first third-party input

"Open" has been mentioned many times at Apple's WWDC2014 convention, and around this concept, the most exciting feature of iOS 8 is that the user calls for a long time to open the Third-party input method and the intelligent voice Input method is the first Third-party input method based on iOS system.

On the functional side, it has not brought much extra innovation to the iphone: it supports Mandarin, Cantonese, English and some other dialects of voice input, the system automatically recognizes the punctuation, and the handwritten overlap function.

After installing the input method, the user can use the following steps:

Step 1:iphone The main interface-> "Settings"-> "General"-> "keyboard (keyboard)"-> "keyboard (keyboards)"-> "Add new Keyboard";

Step 2: Click on the list to select the "flying Input Method";

In the course of use you will find that the main interface of IOS 8 opening is insert (inserttext), delete (Deletebackward), get the content (Doccontextafter/beforeinput) after the cursor.

In addition, Apple has opened a series of other interfaces, such as Uitextinputdelegate, which can be used to bind the selection changes and content changes in the current input box. This helps the input method to track the changes of cursor position and selection in real time, so that semantic learning and semantic prediction can be carried out in time according to the new content and cursor position.

Another one called the Uilexicon interface is also open, Apple official explained, which makes it possible for a third-party input method to simply import contact names, quick entries, and a built-in thesaurus for Apple-related words in a system.

But while openness is wonderful, IOS 8 The open strategy of third-party input method, there are some limitations, such as:

1. If you encounter password input, you will be forced to call the system default input method to ensure the user's information security.

2. Third-party input method does not allow the cursor to move the location, also does not allow the selection of text in the input box, that is, cut, copy, paste and so on can not be used.

3. There is no receptacle access network permissions, which is closely related to the news and flight products, directly will lead to online voice input, cloud input and other functions can not be used, but offline cloud input and off-line voice technology has a lot of room for development.

It is not difficult to find that Apple is unwilling to open several interfaces, most of which are related to user information security. So the word "trust" was repeatedly mentioned in the WWDC:

"Your the consideration when creating a custom keyboard moment-in to how are you establish and maintain the user trust."
Establishing and guaranteeing trust is the first prerequisite for third-party input method.

This is also why many developers bluntly, IOS 8 of Third-party Input method is not likely to go beyond the previous jailbreak version of the input method, it is not possible to go beyond the built-in system input method.

I am looking forward to have more third-party input method to come out ~ but to tell the truth, I use the system input method for many years, seemingly no discomfort yes ... Is it too much to pursue?