Ikea has created its own keyboard for iOS, Ikea emoticons. The furniture company says many communication problems come from clutter, and that its new range of emoticons will help to fix that. But can they?

The household emoticons you've always dreamed of

Of course, this explanation is somewhat tongue in cheek. The company says its emoticons can help to stop communication problems between men and women that have existed "since the dawn of time". Putting aside this lazy stereotyping, what this means is a new range of emoticons with Ikea's Scandinavian design.

Aside from how they look, what makes Ikea Emoticons unique is their focus on household objects. This is unsurprising, but anyway, you can finally express yourself with a little image of some shelves, a sofa, or even some Swedish meatballs.

Free and fresh new emoticons for your iPhone

Ikea Emoticons is completely free, and works as well as any other third-party keyboard. You can start using it by tapping Settings, then General, then Keyboards and finally Keyboards again. Here you can select the Ikea keyboard by toggling the "Allow Full Access" button. It will now be available from your keyboard, by tapping and holding the World symbol.

It doesn't do anything revolutionary to speed up your typing like Swiftkey, and its text keyboard is more cramped than your standard one. However, the emoticons are clearly the focus of Ikea Emoticons, and they could be a welcome expansion of your library.

A free alternative keyboard with no tricks or complications

With no in-app purchases, and no 'premium' alternative version, there's really nothing to lose by installing Ikea Emoticons, unless you really dislike the brand.