Why doesn’t my iPhone keyboard app show up on iPad?
The same Apple ID and the same app on both devices, but the keyboard list on your iPad has nothing to show for it. Two separate facts explain this: keyboard lists are not shared between devices, and a keyboard extension is its own component with its own device targeting.
You added a custom keyboard on your iPhone, it works everywhere you type, and you reasonably expect the same thing on your iPad since it is signed into the same Apple ID. You open Settings on the iPad, go looking for it, and it simply is not there. Nothing failed to sync — two separate things are going on, and neither of them is a bug.
A keyboard list belongs to one device, not one Apple ID
Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards is local to the device you are looking at it on. It is not one of the settings iCloud carries between an iPhone and an iPad the way a Safari tab, a note or a Wi-Fi password can be. Add a keyboard on your iPhone and that choice lives on your iPhone; your iPad keeps its own separate list, starting from Apple’s defaults, until you go into that same Settings path on the iPad itself and add something there too. This is true of Apple’s own alternate keyboards as well, not just third-party ones — a French keyboard added on one device does not appear on the other either.
Being signed in is not the same as the app being on that device
A shared Apple ID does make a purchased or downloaded app available on your other devices for free, but “available” still means it has to be installed on the iPad specifically before anything about it, including a keyboard, can show up there. If you have only ever installed the app on your iPhone, there is nothing on the iPad for Settings to find yet, regardless of the Apple ID both devices share.
Why some keyboards stop there anyway
Even once an app is installed on both devices, a keyboard extension is not automatically part of the deal. A developer builds an app to target specific device families — iPhone only, iPad only, or both — and a keyboard extension bundled inside that app carries its own targeting on top of that. An app can be perfectly usable on an iPad while its keyboard extension is not offered there at all, because the two are separate pieces of the same submission.
The keyboard itself is the harder half
The reason a developer might stop at iPhone is not laziness so much as scope. An iPhone keyboard is one fixed shape docked to the bottom of one screen size. An iPad adds a floating keyboard, a split layout, external Bluetooth keyboards, and multitasking with several apps on screen at once — a genuinely different design problem, not a bigger version of the same one. A theme, a sound set or a backlight effect built and tuned for one screen size does not automatically make sense stretched or reflowed across another, so plenty of keyboard developers ship iPhone-only on purpose rather than offer an iPad experience nobody actually designed.
Where Kibo fits
Kibo is built specifically for the iPhone’s portrait keyboard and, at least for now, ships iPhone-only — it is not yet available as a keyboard on iPad. Nothing about that is tied to Full Access or an account; it is simply the device the keyboard was designed and tuned for. Everything covered elsewhere on this site — the key sounds, the themes, the backlight effects, the fancy text styles and the 30 typing languages — is scoped to that one keyboard, on the iPhone, for the time being.
Frequently asked questions
I already have the keyboard app on my iPhone — will it show up free on my iPad?
Only if the app is installed on the iPad too and its keyboard extension is built to target iPad at all. A shared Apple ID makes the app free to install on your other devices, but installing is a separate step from what was already on your iPhone, and even then the keyboard component may simply not be offered on that device.
Does adding a keyboard on my iPhone ever carry over to my iPad automatically?
No. Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards is a per-device list and is not synced by iCloud. Each device keeps its own list from scratch, whether the keyboard is Apple’s own or a third-party one.
Does Kibo work on iPad?
Not yet. Kibo is built for the iPhone’s portrait keyboard specifically and currently ships iPhone-only.
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.