My Daughter Wanted a Keycap Keyboard App, So I Built One (The Keypop Story)

My daughter found a keyboard app she really wanted, one that makes your phone keyboard look like colorful keycaps. We were looking at it together and I thought, I could probably make this. That’s how Keypop started.

I have a day job and build apps in the evenings. This is a short write-up of how Keypop came together. If you’d rather just try it, here’s Keypop on the App Store.

She didn’t want a toy

A lot of keycap apps are basically fidget toys. You tap keys on the screen and hear a click. That wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted the keyboard she texts her friends with to look cute. So Keypop had to be a real keyboard that you install on your phone.

That made the project a lot bigger than I expected. The iPhone keyboard is written in Swift, the Android one in Kotlin, and all the designing happens in one app. The keyboard simply reads whatever you saved there.

Typing had to feel right

A pretty keyboard is useless if typing feels off. I wrote the typing engine separately for each platform and kept testing them against the same list of cases until they all behaved the same. Keypop now supports 29 languages. You can pick up to three and switch with one key, and you hold a letter to get accents.

Keypop

Honestly, the fastest way to get it is to type with it

Download on the App Store▶ Get it on Google Play

I threw away my own themes

The first version had themes I designed, and you picked one. Then people started asking for completely different things. Hearts. Their own photos. Just a quieter sound. I couldn’t possibly make enough themes for everyone.

So in version 1.0.3 I rebuilt it as an editor where you choose the shape, color, outline, background and sound yourself. I wrote up how it works in make your own keycap keyboard.

The part I wouldn’t compromise on

A keyboard sees every letter you type, and this one was going to be used by my kid. So Keypop’s keyboard doesn’t store what you type and doesn’t send it anywhere. There are no ads and no network code inside the keyboard at all, and there’s no login.

If the “Allow Full Access” warning made you nervous, I explain it in is Allow Full Access safe?

Now it’s something people make together

You can post your keyboard to the Market. If you heart someone else’s, it goes into your favorites and you can apply it right away. We also just started a monthly keycap contest, and whoever gets the most hearts wins lifetime Keypop Plus.

Keypop

Make one and enter this month’s contest

Download on the App Store▶ Get it on Google Play

There’s still plenty I want to fix and add, and I’ll keep writing about it here. If you’re setting it up for the first time, this guide walks you through it.

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