I started to look at the App Protection Policies which have an option to block 3rd-party keyboard for apps that are protected by the App Protection Policies. When writing an email the GBoard keyboard is not available The tip / solution All other apps, that were not managed could just use the third-party keyboard without any issue.

My customer reported an issue that the Third party keyboards could not be used on devices that were enrolled into Microsoft Intune and therefor MDM-managed. Third party Keyboards can have features like that you can swipe the keyboard to write, like we had on the latest Windows mobile devices and of course already many years on Android. One of the many third party keyboards for iOS Very popular third party keyboards on iOS are for instance Google Gboard, SwiftKey, Microsoft Word Flow and many more. Third party keyboards are supported since iOS 8 which was released in 2014, and are basically apps that you need to install from the Apple App store. So something to look into 🙂 Third Party Keyboards in iOS Mobile phones that I owned through out the years were always based on Windows or iOS, but I never had used 3rd-party keyboard on those devices. The issue was that on an Intune managed device a 3rd-party keyboard could not be used.

Recently I was asked by one of my customers to look into an issue. This time a short tip for when you are managing iOS devices with Microsoft Intune. Long time that I had time and inspiration to write a new blog, next to the video’s on my Enterprise Mobility Tips YouTube channel.

Ipad swift keyboard