In putting together my Nebulous Notes macros, I ended up having to choose icons for the buttons that would sit on top of my keyboard. As you can see from my screenshots, I’m using specific Unicode characters that add a touch of personality to the interface. I copied those characters using Uniconsole.
Uniconsole is a very simple, do-one-thing-well $1.99 app that runs on the iPhone and iPad. It fully supports iOS 6 and the new iPhone 5 display. Uniconsole lets you copy “unconvential” Unicode characters and symbols of various kinds and alphabets. While you can find these for free on the web, Uniconsole provides a nice interface to switch between alphabets and sections, save favorites, and copy them to the iOS clipboard. You can copy single characters or multiple ones at once; on iOS, you can bring up the native share sheet by tapping and holding on the scissors icon in the text box.
There are various pages of default symbols and characters; by swiping all the way to the right, you can access sections, including:
- Dingbats
- Arrows
- Shapes
- Letters
- Technical
- Currency
- Old and New Emoji
- Mathematical
The selection is very rich, and the app is easy to navigate. There’s also a dedicated page that lets you type anything with the system keyboard, and apply a “fun filter” to your text. Filters include things like flip upside down or custom strikethrough.
Uniconsole does one thing extremely well, and while the characters and symbols it collects can be found online with a bit of research, I’ll take the convenience of a Universal app over wasting my time looking for a Unicode arrow any time. If you’re looking for this kind of functionality, $1.99 is money well spent for Uniconsole.
