Microsoft has launched its one-handed keyboard app for iOS on the Apple's App Store in the United States as the tech giant tries to expand its mobile productivity line-up. Microsoft's Garage division developed the experimental product with next-word prediction. The Word Flow app was first developed for its Windows Phone platform and has been offered for its Windows 10 desktop operating system.    

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Word Flow not only includes next word predictions but also swipe-to-type input for faster texting. It is like Swype and other keyboard apps.

Meanwhile, the one-handed typing mode shows the display's keyboard as an arc, which allows users to type with one thumb, according to Tech Crunch. Users can also change the appearance of the Word Flow keyboard.

During the first years of the Windows Phone platform Microsoft hoped to use keyboard tech to take market share from rivals including iOS and Android. One reason is that at first Apple prevented developers from building system-wide iOS keyboards.  

However, in 2014 the California company changed its policy on system-wide keyboards with iOS 8. It allowed third-party developers and added new features to iOS' native keyboard.  

Microsoft's plan to get a larger piece of the mobile market share has been a waterloo. That has caused the company to change its focus to developing mobile apps.

As part of new strategy Microsoft spent $250 million in February to buy keyboard maker SwiftKey. It was an early builder of next-word prediction keyboard tech. At the time of Apple's purchase SwiftKey had been installed on about 300 million devices on iOS, Android, and SDK mobile devices.

In related news, Microsoft has been in the smartphone business for about two years after it purchased Nokia for $9.5 billion, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. Until then the Bill Gates co-founded company had focused on making Windows software for mobile phones that licensed to phone manufacturers such as Samsung.

The purchase of Nokia followed Apple's business model of combining Nokia phones with Windows software. However, Microsoft's 2 percent-share of the global smartphone market is less than before the Nokia buyout. The company only sold 2.3 million Lumia smartphones during its last quarter.

Here's a review of Word Flow: