How can I programmatically check whether a keyboard is present in iOS app?

Add an extension

extension UIApplication {
    /// Checks if view hierarchy of application contains `UIRemoteKeyboardWindow` if it does, keyboard is presented
    var isKeyboardPresented: Bool {
        if let keyboardWindowClass = NSClassFromString("UIRemoteKeyboardWindow"),
            self.windows.contains(where: { $0.isKind(of: keyboardWindowClass) }) {
            return true
        } else {
            return false
        }
    }
}

Then check if keyboard is present,

if UIApplication.shared.isKeyboardPresented {
     print("Keyboard presented")
} else { 
     print("Keyboard is not presented")
}

Swift 3 Implementation

    import Foundation
class KeyboardStateListener: NSObject
{
    static let shared = KeyboardStateListener()
    var isVisible = false

    func start() {
        NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(self, selector: #selector(didShow), name: NSNotification.Name.UIKeyboardWillShow, object: nil)
        NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(self, selector: #selector(didHide), name: NSNotification.Name.UIKeyboardWillHide, object: nil)
    }

    func didShow()
    {
        isVisible = true
    }

    func didHide()
    {
        isVisible = false
    } 
}

A few observations:

The recommended pattern for a singleton object would be as follows. dispatch_once makes sure the class is initialised once in a thread-safe way, and the static variable isn't visible outside. And it's standard GCD, so no need to know about low level details of Objective-C.

+ (KeyboardStateListener *)sharedInstance
{
    static KeyboardStateListener* shared;
    static dispatch_once_t onceToken;
    dispatch_once(&onceToken, ^{
        shared = [[KeyboardStateListener alloc] init];
        // Other initialisations
    });

    return shared;
}

Usually you don't want to know just whether the keyboard is visible or not, but how big it is. Keyboards don't all have the same size. iPhone keyboards are smaller than iPad keyboards. So you'd want another property @property (readonly, nonatomic) CGRect keyboardRect; which is set in the noticeShowKeyboard: method like this:

NSValue* value = notification.userInfo [UIKeyboardFrameEndUserInfoKey];
_keyboardRect = value.CGRectValue;

Important to notice that the rectangle is in UIWindow coordinates and doesn't respect screen rotation. So the caller would convert that rectangle by calling

KeyboardStateListener* listener = [KeyboardStateListener sharedInstance];
CGRect windowRect = listener.keyboardRect;
CGRect viewRect = [myView convertRect:windowRect fromView:self.window];

If the user rotates the screen while the keyboard is visible, the app will be told that the keyboard is hidden, then shown again. When it is shown, other views are most likely not rotated yet. So if you observe keyboard hide/show events yourself, convert the coordinates when you actually need them, not in the notification.

If the user splits or undocks the keyboard, or uses a hardware keyboard, the notifications will always show the keyboard as hidden. Undocking or merging the keyboard will send a "keyboard shown" notification.

The listener must be initialised while the keyboard is hidden, otherwise the first notification will be missed, and it will be assumed that the keyboard is hidden when it's not.

So it is quite important to know what you actually want. This code is useful to move things out of the way of the keyboard (with a split or undocked keyboard, that's the responsibility of the user). It doesn't tell you whether the user can see a keyboard on the screen (in case of a split keyboard). It doesn't tell you whether the user can type (for example when there is a hardware keyboard). Looking at other windows doesn't work if the app creates other windows itself.

Swift 4

extension UIViewController {
    func registerKeyboardNotifications() {
        let center = NotificationCenter.default
        center.addObserver(self, selector: #selector(keyboardWillBeShown(note:)), name: Notification.Name.UIKeyboardWillShow, object: nil)
        center.addObserver(self, selector: #selector(keyboardWillBeHidden(note:)), name: Notification.Name.UIKeyboardWillHide, object: nil)
    }

    func removeKeyboardNotifications() {
        NotificationCenter.default.removeObserver(self, name: NSNotification.Name.UIKeyboardWillShow, object: nil)
        NotificationCenter.default.removeObserver(self, name: NSNotification.Name.UIKeyboardWillHide, object: nil)

    }

    @objc
    func keyboardWillBeShown(note: Notification) {}

    @objc
    func keyboardWillBeHidden(note: Notification) {}

}

final class MyViewController: UIViewController {

    // MARK: - Properties
    var isKeyboardVisible = false

    // MARK: - Life Cycle
    override func viewWillAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
        super.viewWillAppear(animated)
        registerKeyboardNotifications()
    }

    override func viewWillDisappear(_ animated: Bool) {
        super.viewWillDisappear(animated)
        removeKeyboardNotifications()
    }

    // MARK: - Keyboard Handling
    override func keyboardWillBeShown(note: Notification) {
        isKeyboardVisible = true
        let userInfo = note.userInfo
        let keyboardFrame = userInfo?[UIKeyboardFrameEndUserInfoKey] as! CGRect
        let contentInset = UIEdgeInsetsMake(0.0, 0.0, keyboardFrame.height, 0.0)
        tableView.contentInset = contentInset
    }

   override func keyboardWillBeHidden(note: Notification) {
        tableView.contentInset = .zero
        isKeyboardVisible = false
   }

   // MARK: - Test
   fileprivate func test() {
        if isKeyboardVisible { // do something
        }
   }
}

SwiftUI - Full Example

import SwiftUI

struct ContentView: View {
    
    @State private var text = defaultText
    
    @State private var isKeyboardShowing = false
    
    private static let defaultText = "write something..."
    
    private var gesture = TapGesture().onEnded({_ in
        UIApplication.shared.endEditing(true)
    })
    
    var body: some View {
        
        ZStack {
            Color.black
            
            VStack(alignment: .leading) {
                TextField("placeholder", text: $text)
                    .foregroundColor(.white)
                    .padding()
                    .background(Color.green)
            }
            
            .padding()
        }
        .edgesIgnoringSafeArea(.all)
        .onChange(of: isKeyboardShowing, perform: { (isShowing) in
            if isShowing {
                if text == Self.defaultText { text = "" }
            } else {
                if text == "" { text = Self.defaultText }
            }
        })
        .simultaneousGesture(gesture)
        .onReceive(NotificationCenter.default
                    .publisher(for: UIResponder.keyboardWillShowNotification), perform: { (value) in
                        isKeyboardShowing = true
                    })
        .onReceive(NotificationCenter.default
                    .publisher(for: UIResponder.keyboardWillHideNotification), perform: { (value) in
                        isKeyboardShowing = false
                    })
    }
}

extension UIApplication {
    func endEditing(_ force: Bool) {
        self.windows
            .filter{$0.isKeyWindow}
            .first?
            .endEditing(force)
    }
}

You can iteratively check all textviews, textfields, and labels in the subviews of a parent view to see if any are the first responder with something like this:

-(BOOL)isKeyboardActiveInView:(UIView *)view {
    for (UIView *anyView in [view subviews]) {
        if ([anyView isKindOfClass:[UITextField class]]) {
            if (((UITextField *)anyView).isFirstResponder) {
                return YES;
            }
        } else if ([anyView isKindOfClass:[UILabel class]]) {
            if (((UILabel *)anyView).isFirstResponder) {
                return YES;
            }
        } else if ([anyView isKindOfClass:[UITextView class]]) {
            if (((UITextView *)anyView).isFirstResponder) {
                return YES;
            }
        } else {
            if ([self isKeyboardActiveInView:anyView]) {
                return YES;
            }
        }
    }
    return NO;
}

SWIFT 4.2 / SWIFT 5

class Listener {
   public static let shared = Listener()
   var isVisible = false

   // Start this listener if you want to present the toast above the keyboard.
   public func startKeyboardListener() {
      NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(self, selector: #selector(didShow), name: UIResponder.keyboardWillShowNotification, object: nil)
      NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(self, selector: #selector(didHide), name: UIResponder.keyboardWillHideNotification, object: nil)
   }

   @objc func didShow() {
     isVisible = true
   }

    @objc func didHide(){
       isVisible = false
    }
}