As Apple allows public testers to download and install iOS 10.3 public beta, the main new features in iOS 10.3 like Find My AirPods, New Apple ID Profile Page, and Apple File System (APFS) are exposed to users now. There is a hidden floating one-handed keyboard for iPad in iOS 10.3, though, is not publicly accessible to users yet. Digging through the code of iOS 10.3 beta, developer Steven Troughton-Smith uncovered this secret iPad keyboard.
Floating Keyboard
According to Smith’s twitter, this new keyboard can be moved around onscreen, which is similar to Picture-in-Picture mode for video. It looks like an iPhone keyboard so you can input with one hand on your iPad. With such a keyboard, you can easily input between two apps in split-screen mode without having to minimize the keyboard.
And this is iPad’s floating keyboard. Both of these are kinda fiddly and awkward and it’s not hard to see why they didn’t ship as-is pic.twitter.com/YB1q18ei2w
— Steve T-S (@stroughtonsmith) January 25, 2017
However, this floating one-handed keyboard for iPad only supports 9.7 or smaller iPad models, that is to say, the 12.9-inch iPad Pro is left out.
Gestural Keyboard
Another hidden keyboard in iOS 10.3 beta mentioned by Smith is a gestural keyboard, which lets you swipe left and right on any key to perform a backspace or space.
This is iPad’s gestural keyboard (similar to Playgrounds’ programmer one). You can swipe left/right on any key to backspace or space pic.twitter.com/jaskd0EEEh
— Steve T-S (@stroughtonsmith) January 25, 2017
It seems that the two keyboards have been hidden since iOS 10, and they are still in Apple’s internal test. Therefore, they will not be available in the official release of iOS 10.3. But it is widely-speculated that the new iPad keyboards will come with iOS 11. Maybe soon we can get more details about these secret keyboards at WWDC in June.