Pilcrow
Keyboard for iPhone and iPad
I’m a spell-check keyboard that never argues back.
I read the whole sentence, fix what you meant, and leave alone what you actually wrote. Forty languages, on the layout your fingers already know.
Pilcrow: Spell Check KeyboardFree for three days from your first word
App Store · iOS 17 or later
A name I’ve never seen stays as you wrote it. A slip doesn’t.
Lumi says yes, see you tomorrow
Kept “Lumi”, fixed “tomorow”. Undo a fix once and I never try it on that word again.
I change a correctly spelled word fewer than 8 times in 1,000, in the worst of my forty languages.
Typed in a hurry? One tap fixes the whole message.
sorry I’m running late will be there in ten mins
The wand weighed every word against the sentence and fixed four. One more tap puts them all back.
Of words typed with a genuine slip, 50–83 % come back right.
Missed the space bar? I work out where the words end from the sentence, not from one key.
Now it takes some time. Can we improve something?
An n and two full stops, read as spaces. About 1 ms a keystroke on the phone, so I never lag behind your thumbs.
Or don’t tap at all: draw the word and lift.
Please don’t worry
The apostrophe came with it, and no key was pressed for it. Keep going through the space bar and one gesture writes the next word too.
Swipe works in every language I ship.
A name from a few lines up comes back after two letters.
Lumi says thanks!
I keep your word the second time you write it, and every word I keep is a line you can delete.
Predictions save 35–53 % of keystrokes, depending on the language, before I’ve learned a thing about you.
And I don’t have to look like this.
Eight finished looks, each with a light and a dark form. Your own photo behind the keys or inside them, and the letters in any of 23 fonts or 17 styles. What you type stays plain text, so corrections keep working. How themes work.
Can you prove any of that?
Every figure comes from replaying held-out text through the shipped keyboard, one language at a time. Where languages differ you get the whole range, worst end first.
The numbers
40 languages · 12 Oct 2026- Correctly spelled words changed < 8 in 1,000 The false-correction rate, the number every “it did it again” is about. 0.02–0.76 %, best language to worst.
- Real slips fixed 50–83 % Of words typed with one genuine error, the share restored.
- Missing accents restored 73–96 % In the 31 languages that use them, when typed without.
- Keystrokes saved 35–53 % From predictions and completions, on a keyboard that has learned nothing about you yet.
- Tap accuracy gained +3.8 pp From key zones that adapt to how you aim. You never see it happen.
- Time per keystroke ≈ 1 ms At the 95th percentile, on the phone.
The first four run from the worst language to the best, measured with every feature on, on text the keyboard never saw while it was built. The last two are measured on the keyboard itself, the same in every language.
What do you keep about me?
Only what you write, and only on this phone. This is when something becomes a thing I remember:
- A word of yours
- the 2nd time you write it
- A phrase
- after 2 repeats
- A preferred spelling
- after 3
- A fix you make by hand
- a rule after 2
Each one is a line you can open from the keyboard itself, and delete, block or edit. Apple’s keyboard gives you one button: erase everything.
I forget, too. A word seen a couple of times and never written again retires, and a correction you refused by accident is released once you write the word properly. Deleting one word.
I write in two languages, sometimes in one sentence.
Enable both. I tell them apart word by word, so there’s no globe key mid-sentence, and each one types on the layout your fingers already know. Forty languages so far.
Skipped an accent? I put it back 73–96 % of the time, depending on the language, and where both spellings are real words, the words around it decide.
Does anything I type leave my phone?
No. The keyboard has no networking code at all, so there’s nothing to switch off and nothing to take on trust. No account, no cloud, no analytics, no ads.
Only the app goes online: to download languages, check for a newer version, verify a purchase, and send feedback you write yourself.
iOS shows every third-party keyboard the same Full Access warning. For me the switch adds haptics, the clipboard and the word list in the app; corrections, predictions, learning and every language work with it off. I recommend turning it on, because even then I couldn’t send what you type anywhere. What Full Access means.
What does it cost?
Nothing for three days from your first word, with everything on. No card, no account.
Then buy me once, or monthly if you’d rather. The App Store shows the price in your currency, and nothing charges at the end of the free days.
If you don’t buy, I keep typing, with gentle corrections in your main language. Predictions, swipe, learning and most themes wait for the unlock, and nothing I learned is deleted.
Pilcrow: Spell Check KeyboardFree for three days from your first word
App Store · iOS 17 or later
Anything else? Tap a question.
Why does Apple’s keyboard sometimes appear instead?
iOS always uses its own keyboard in password and phone-number fields, and some apps allow only Apple’s. The Pilcrow app has a page that lists every case and how to switch back. The full list.
Can I put my own photo in the keyboard?
Yes: behind the keys, inside each key, or under frosted-glass keys. You pick it with the system photo picker, and it never leaves your phone. Keyboard colours on iPhone.
Do the fancy letter styles work in every app?
Styled typing writes Unicode characters, so they show up in any app that shows text. It’s off unless you turn it on, and corrections, suggestions, learning and swipe pause while it is. Screen readers may read styled letters oddly, so keep plain text for anything important. How they work.
Does it read my contacts?
I consult them so a name you type every day stops being corrected into something else. Nothing is copied anywhere, and the keyboard couldn’t send it if it tried.
What decides what to correct?
Small language models that run on your phone: one predicts the next word, others decide what to correct. Nothing is sent away to be guessed at, and they answer in about a millisecond.
Does it work on iPad and iPhone Duo?
Yes, on iOS and iPadOS 17 or later, including a split layout on iPad that puts every letter within reach of a thumb. On iPhone Duo I draw the keyboard Apple’s draws in each pose: closed, open, and split for two thumbs when open sideways. The keyboard on iPhone Duo.
Why is it called Pilcrow?
The pilcrow, ¶, is the mark that has stood for a paragraph since the Middle Ages. It’s a character you type, and it’s about writing. That seemed right.
That was six things out of 122. Every one of them is on one page:
Every feature of Pilcrowpilcrowtype.com/features · each in the App Store version today
And I write about typing:
- Why iPhone autocorrect changes words you typed correctlyWhy it happens, and the five fixes Apple’s own settings give you.
- How to type in two languages on iPhoneApple’s bilingual keyboard, and what to do when your pair isn’t supported.
- How to reset the keyboard dictionary, or just fix one wordWhat it erases, and the gentler fixes to try first.
- All postsNotes on typing.