Does Type to Siri work with a third-party keyboard on iPhone?
Turn on Type to Siri and the box that replaces the listening animation is always Apple’s own keyboard, no globe key anywhere on it — the same system-surface rule behind Spotlight, showing up on a different screen.
Settings → Accessibility → Siri has a switch called Type to Siri, and turning it on changes what happens the moment you activate Siri: instead of the familiar listening animation waiting for your voice, a text field appears with a keyboard underneath it. Type your request there instead of speaking it, and Siri answers the typed version exactly as it would the spoken one. The keyboard that shows up to do that typing, though, is always Apple’s own grey keyboard — not whichever one is set as your favourite, not whatever sits first in your keyboard list — and there is no globe key anywhere on it to switch away.
What Type to Siri actually is
It lives in the Accessibility section of Settings for a reason: it is built for anyone who cannot or would rather not speak a request out loud — a Deaf or hard-of-hearing user, a shared office, a quiet room late at night, or simply a preference for typing over talking. Turn it on, activate Siri the way you normally would, and the text box appears in place of the animation. Turn it off again and Siri goes back to listening for your voice by default, with nothing else about the phone changed by having tried it.
Why the keyboard is always Apple’s own
The reason is the same one behind a couple of other places a third-party keyboard never appears. Everywhere a third-party keyboard normally works — Messages, Notes, Safari, the ordinary fields inside a banking app — is a text field that belongs to an app, and iOS lets that app ask which keyboard extension should draw itself there. Siri’s typing field is not that kind of field. It is drawn by Siri itself, a system interface sitting on top of whatever app you were using, not a text box belonging to something you downloaded from the App Store. A field like that never goes through the mechanism a third-party keyboard depends on to get chosen, so there is nothing to swap in — for Kibo or for any other keyboard on the App Store. It sits in the same category of surface as Spotlight search and the search field inside Settings, just reached through Siri instead of the Home Screen.
How this differs from a password field
A password field shows Apple’s keyboard too, with no globe key, which makes it look like the same restriction. It is not, for the same reason Spotlight is not. A password field is an ordinary app field that iOS overrides the moment it is marked as secure entry, then hands straight back the moment you leave it. Siri’s field is never handed to a third-party extension to begin with, so there is no override happening and nothing being handed back either — the option was never on the table.
What actually helps
There is not much to fix here, because nothing is actually broken. What goes into that box is a spoken request written down rather than a message you are composing to keep, so the sounds, theme and fancy text styles a keyboard like Kibo adds were never really the point of it. If a Siri request opens something you do want to keep typing in — a reminder, a note, a message it drafts on your behalf — that draft lands inside the actual app a moment later, and your usual keyboard is right there once it does. For anything you are genuinely writing rather than asking, opening the app directly and skipping Siri’s text box is the more direct route anyway.
Where Kibo fits
Kibo behaves exactly like every other third-party keyboard here, because this is a boundary Siri draws around its own interface rather than something a keyboard app can opt into or out of. Full Access does not change it either — Full Access governs what an extension can do once iOS has already loaded it into a field, and nothing third-party is ever loaded into Siri’s typing field in the first place. The moment you are back in an ordinary app, Kibo’s themes, key sounds and lighting are exactly where you left them, and none of it needed Full Access to begin with.
Frequently asked questions
Why does Type to Siri always use the Apple keyboard?
The typing field it shows is drawn by Siri itself, a system interface, rather than a text field belonging to a downloadable app. The mechanism that lets an app offer a third-party keyboard extension never runs there, so no keyboard — Kibo included — is ever eligible to appear.
Is this the same restriction as a password field?
It looks the same but is not. A password field is an ordinary app field that iOS overrides once it is marked secure. Siri’s field never goes through that selection process at all, so there is no override taking place — there was never a choice being offered.
Does turning on Full Access change what keyboard Siri uses?
No. Full Access governs what a keyboard extension can do inside a field it has already been loaded into. Siri’s typing field is never handed to a third-party extension in the first place, so no permission setting changes the outcome.
Try it on your own keyboard
Kibo is a free custom keyboard for iPhone with real mechanical key sounds, a wardrobe of themes and RGB backlight effects. No account, no ads, and it works with Full Access left off.