Unicode Pad vs Symbol Keyboard for Texting
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Unicode Pad
Access and copy thousands of Unicode characters to use in any app. Create custom keyboards for frequently used symbols and share them with friends. Search characters by name, codepoint, or glyph, and view detailed descriptions.
- Copy characters to clipboard
- Customizable keyboards
- Share custom keyboards
- Search characters by name/codepoint/glyph
- View extended character descriptions
- Thousands of symbols available
Read full descriptionHide full description
Note: This app supports only in-app custom keyboards! For a fancier version which also supports iOS 8 and later custom keyboards, check out the Unicode Pad Pro app! • Tested on latest iOS 11 • Support for Unicode 11 standard • Copy characters to clipboard for use in other apps, like web, mail, chat, notes… practically any iOS app! • Notepad with customizable keyboards, for your often-used characters and for copying several characters at once. Great for casual writing, too! • Share your custom keyboards with your friends! • Send mail and tweets right from within the app! • Huge selection of symbols (thousands), in fact all that are available on your device. Database itself actually contains data for all Unicode characters (over 100,000), but only glyphs available in iOS system font are actually visible. • Quick acces to many groups of commonly used symbols! • Search for characters by name, hexadecimal codepoint or glyph! Find similar and related characters instantly! • Streamlined design, specifically optimized for each device. Support for all device orientations and Retina display. • Support for Backspace, New line, Shift and Alternate special keys on custom keyboards. • Custom keyboard sizes up to 6x16=96 keys. • View extended character descriptions on Wikipedia, right inside the app! This works particularly great for emoticons! • One universal application works on iPhone, iPod and iPad! • Reference booklet of characters available on modern computers! Paper Unicode maps are over 1000 pages long! • Developers: see which characters are available on your iOS device! • Great for scientific, mathematical and physics notation, handles many superscripts, subscripts and other symbols! • Excellent for phonetic notation! • Perfect for writing Unicode poetry! • Awesome for making interesting app names! • HTML entity names for relevant characters • UNIHAN english definitions for CJK ideograms for many characters • Flick left and right for next and previous characters in detail view • Affordable price!
Symbol Keyboard for Texting
Enhance your mobile conversations with a vast library of over 50,000 unique Unicode characters and symbols. Easily integrate these special characters into your messages to make your chats more engaging and visually interesting.
- Over 50,000 characters
- Unicode symbols
- Special characters
- Enhanced mobile chatting
- Texting customization
Read full descriptionHide full description
Symbol Keyboard improves your mobile chatting, making it more fun! Features: - Over 50000 Characters
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Symbol Keyboard for Texting at Free against Unicode Pad's $2.99. Symbol Keyboard for Texting also leads on rating (4.6 vs 3.5) and ratings volume (2.9K vs 8). Unicode Pad's advantage is ads (none vs shown) and chart position (#184 vs unranked). On in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Symbol Keyboard for Texting is free to download; Unicode Pad costs $2.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Symbol Keyboard for Texting holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 3.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Symbol Keyboard for Texting has 2.9K ratings behind it against 8, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 74% of Unicode Pad's written reviews are positive against 88% of Symbol Keyboard for Texting's.
Unicode Pad ships an update every 3 months, Symbol Keyboard for Texting every 3 weeks. Both last shipped on October 20, 2026.
| Parameter | Unicode Pad | Symbol Keyboard for Texting |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $2.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 3.5 (8 ratings) | 4.6 (2.9K ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 73.7% of reviews | 87.9% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 8 | 2.9K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Every 3 weeks — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Ad-supported — better |
| Best chart rank | #184 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 11.0 — better | 15.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 140 MB | 8 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Ziga Kranjec | ShuMei Liang |
Customer experience
Unicode Pad
Symbol Keyboard for Texting
User reviews
Unicode Pad
From 8 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Comprehensive symbol catalog
- 💡 Customizable keyboards
- 🚀 Easy to use interface
- 🔍 Powerful search functionality
- 🌟 Useful for nicknames and special characters
Room to improve
- 🐛 Occasional crashes
- 📦 Some characters display as boxes
- 🐌 Laggy scrolling and slow loading
- 🖱️ Manual copy-pasting required
- ⌨️ Limited keyboard space for custom keyboards
Symbol Keyboard for Texting
From 2.9K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Great source for uncommon and common fonts
- 👍 Comprehensive collection of symbols and languages
- 👍 Useful for organization and labeling
- 👍 Easy to integrate with iOS keyboard
Room to improve
- 🐛 App now just takes you to ads
- 🐛 Loads ads instead of showing symbols
- 🐛 Requires full access to see anything typed
- 🔋 High battery consumption
Bugs and requests
Unicode Pad
Reported bugs
17 issues- App crashes when selecting notepad
- App crashes on startup
- Scrolling is laggy
- Custom keyboards take time to load
- Characters not appearing on keyboard after adding
Show 12 moreShow fewer
- Some symbols don't copy properly (show as boxes)
- App won't update
- App becomes very slow after updates
- Custom keyboards are hard to see after update
- Buttons disappear
- Detail window cannot be closed
- Glyph description length exceeds screen
- App freezes and requires device reset
- Favorites/copy buttons sometimes go invisible
- Cannot get to clipboard to post to other apps
- App doesn't work with Facebook
- Characters not displayed (show as squares)
Requested features
15 requests- Ability to add keyboards to other apps
- More space for custom keyboards
- Integration with iOS keyboard
- Add backspace/delete/return keys to custom keyboards
- Ability to rearrange keys on custom keyboards
Show 10 moreShow fewer
- Ability to remove custom keys while on the keyboard
- Sort Unicode blocks numerically
- Save/swap out keyboards from within the app
- Option to hide iOS incompatible characters
- Add space bar to custom keyboard layouts
- Copy as HTML option
- Precise selection and editing features
- Macros for multiple keystrokes
- Dark mode option
- Advanced analytics dashboard
Symbol Keyboard for Texting
Reported bugs
3 issues- App doesn't work, need help
- iOS keeps removing keyboard access
- Recently used symbols list gets cleared
Requested features
4 requests- Add preview of each font before selection
- Organize symbols into categories or folders
- Add more font options, especially for English
- Include astrological and zodiac symbols
In-app purchases
Unicode Pad
No in-app purchases
Symbol Keyboard for Texting
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Unicode Pad free?
Is Symbol Keyboard for Texting free?
Which has better reviews, Unicode Pad or Symbol Keyboard for Texting?
Do Unicode Pad or Symbol Keyboard for Texting have ads?
Which is updated more often, Unicode Pad or Symbol Keyboard for Texting?
Other comparisons
