iOS 10 and the System Keyboard GIF

SEP 13 2016 · 12:00

Kermit the Frog furiously typing, one of the most-searched reaction GIFs of the mobile-keyboard era that arrived on iOS in 2016. Place: Apple, Cupertino; iOS 10 public release Figures: Craig Federighi, SVP Software Engineering · the iMessage Apps team · Giphy and Tenor as launch partners iOS 10 ships on 13 September 2016 with a major iMessage redesign, including the iMessage App Extension framework. The framework lets third-party developers ship apps that live inside the iMessage keyboard rather than as standalone apps that have to be context-switched to. The launch partners include Giphy (see [[giphy-founded-2013]]) and Tenor (see [[tenor-founded-2014]]) as GIF pickers. Within months, sending a reaction GIF on iMessage drops from a multi-step copy-paste exercise to a single keyboard tap. iOS has roughly 700 million active users at the time of release. The format crosses from web-browser context into the messaging substrate of the dominant Western mobile platform.