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The iOS keyboard made a star appearance at this year's WWDC, and for good reason. Not only does iOS 8 promise to bake new functionality into the virtual keyboard, but developers can release third-party keyboards for use on any iOS 8 device. Rumors of Swype integration with iOS were floated last year and now it looks like Swype will be just one of many custom keyboards available.

While Swype's patented tech allows for typing with one continuous gesture, examples of possible keyboard tweaks have been available in the jailbreak community for some time. From cosmetic keyboard changes such as Bloard to functional improvements like SwipeSelection the sky's the limit.

Apple has added DuckDuckGo as one of its search engines options in iOS 8 and OS X 10 Yosemite. The privacy-focused company said they were "thrilled to be included in Safari" on their official blog announcement posted on Tuesday. DuckDuckGo was designed to be an alternative to other search engines such as Google who are known for tracking its users.

The addition of DuckDuckGo is also another chapter in the long running feud between Apple and Google. Apple has been purging itself of Google products since it ditched its stock YouTube and Google Maps app with the release of iOS 6.

As usual Apple did not cover everything iOS 8 has to offer during its public keynote on Monday, but the company did display a graphic detailing the less important features at the end of its preview of its new operating system. One of the listed features that flew under the radar was "improved zoom for accessibility". Currently in iOS 7 users can navigate to Settings > General > Accessibility to activate the "Zoom" option which allows you to use a three-finger tap to magnify text on your display. In iOS 8 the Zoom settings will now allow users to open a magnify glass that can be positioned anywhere to enlarge a specific area of your display.

The magnify bubble can be enlarged to cover more of your display and comes with its own settings for you to configure. You can see the improved zoom feature at work (3:30 mark) during the 9to5Mac video posted below.

With over 1.2 million iOS apps available in the App Store, finding the best and most useful can seem like a daunting task. While the App Store app in iOS 7 has received many improvements, Apple has not stopped working to make the experience even better for mobile device users. iOS 8 promises to incorporate several enhancements to help users and app developers alike.

There are currently 300 million visitors to the App Store every week, so it's no wonder that 75 billion apps have been downloaded since 2008. There are also 9 million registered developers making apps for a total of 800 million iOS devices already sold. Apple CEO Tim Cook detailed the company's latest plans for the App Store at the WWDC 2014 keynote presentation this week.

One of the major improvements to iOS 8 announced at today's WWDC keynote presentation are new features coming to the stock Photos app. Apple is adding a new service called iCloud Photo Library to help store iOS users' photos safely in the cloud. However, that's just the beginning.

Apple touts the iCloud Photo Library as a way to store and easily search any photo from any device. Once enabled, Photos will automatically keep everything on iCloud in its original resolution and format. The files can be accessed on the web or from any iOS device. Searches result in suggestions to check out favorite photos, or those taken around the same time or place.