PopKey plans to change that, and its new iPhone app will give you access to thousands of animated GIFs, all available right from your iPhone's keyboard.
You'll be able to browse featured and trending GIFs, upload your own, save your favorites, and quickly access the GIFs you recently used. You can also browse based on keywords: For instance, tapping an LOL key to bring up a collection of funny GIFs.
Here's what sending a GIF from the iPhone's keyboard will look like.
PopKey
Like other emoji apps out there, PopKey will plug in to your iPhone keyboard's "International" globe key. One tap of that, and you'll be met with a tile of GIFs at your fingertips.
To send a GIF, you'll still have to hold down and copy the GIF, pasting it into iMessage. Since it's all availabe within iMessage, PopKey's method will still be much faster than searching for a GIF online, copying it, opening up iMessage, and pasting it in.
There's no firm launch date for PopKey, but you can sign up to be notified when the app launches over at their website.