In late 2015, I noticed a set of tweets circulating of people playing chess using Emojis in iMessage.

After trying it out for myself, I beceame immediately exhausted by the process of removing and inserting emojis manually with the Emoji keyboard, and decided it would be less effort to make a tool to do the hard stuff for me. With iOS custom keyboards emerging around that time, I took a weekend off from ALEC to throw together Emoji Chess Keyboard.

Unsure of whether Apple would approve of the concept, I hastily submitted a working prototype, which actually ended up getting approved.

Shortly after, I submitted a second version which then cleaned up some of the rough edges and added polish. Unfortunately, Apple decided they no longer liked the concept, and rejected every re-submission and appeal request I made. I’ve accepted that 1.1 will never see the light of day.

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More Info:

Emoji Chess Keyboard on the App Store