Gboard: The Keyboard with (Almost) Everything You Could Want

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Having the right keyboard on your phone can make a big difference in your typing. But many keyboards only offer limited features. Some are good for swipe typing, others offer clever emojis, still others have fun GIFs.

Gboard is a new keyboard from Google that has all of these features and more. Instead of switching keyboards to get your favorite features, you can now have almost all of them in one keyboard with Gboard.

Gboard also lets you do a Google search from within the keyboard, without leaving the site or the app you have open. Very handy.

This video shows Gboard in action:

Gboard is fast and smooth, with no lag between tapping a key and having the text appear on screen. Gboard has become my go-to keyboard and may become yours.

Or maybe not.

In one of the most shocking developments in the history of tech, Google has chosen to offer Gboard as an app for iPhone and iPad only. That’s right, Android, owned by Google, does not have a Gboard app. Yet.

Update => Gboard is now available for Android devices: Gboard for Android

What Makes Gboard So Useful

Emojis

Many keyboards have emojis and Gboard is packed with plenty of them. The search feature for emojis makes Gboard stand out.

Tap the smiley face next to the space bar to open the emoji section of the keyboard. At the bottom you will see icons for the different types of emojis. You can also search for emojis by keywords.

If you’ve ever swiped through dozens of emojis to get to the one you want, you’ll appreciate how easy the emoji search feature is on Gboard.

Search for an emotion and get search results for that term. Search for a country name and the flag of that country appears.

GIFs

Want to add a GIF to your message? Gboard makes it easy.

Tap the smiley face to open the emoji section of the keyboard, then tap GIF at the bottom. You can search for GIFs by keyword or swipe through the different categories, such as Mic Drop.

When you find a GIF you want to include, tap on it to copy it, then tap where you want it to be inserted and tap Paste.

Swipe Typing

Fans of swipe typing will be very pleased with this feature on Gboard. Swipe your finger around the keys to the letters you want to type. Gboard does an admirable job of guessing which words you mean to type.

Predictive Text

Gboard guesses what word you’re trying to type and offers predictions above the keyboard, including emojis.

Shortcuts Enabled

If you’ve set up shortcuts for your keyboard (and you really should take a minute to do that), you can use them on Gboard. Type the shortcut and the full phrase will appear as an option in the predictive text section.

Don’t miss => My Favorite iOS Trick – Shortcuts! to learn how to set up shortcuts on your phone.

Google Searches within Gboard

With Gboard you don’t have to leave an app to do a Google search. Just tap the Google logo in the upper left corner of the keyboard and type your search term in the box.

The results appear as Google Cards. Swipe through them to find the result you want. Tap on a card to copy the result. Tap the arrow to open the result in Safari.

Gboard also suggest searches such as “Restaurants near me.” You can search flight times, convert units, see weather forecasts and more.

What Isn’t in Gboard

Gboard isn’t the perfect keyboard replacement for everyone as it’s lacking a few features you might miss.

Search as you might, you won’t find a microphone key for dictation on Gboard. You will find a microphone icon that lets you send an audio recording, but you can’t dictate words that are transcribed into text.

In most views, punctuation does not appear on the text keyboard. You must either double-tap the space bar to insert a period or open the punctuation keyboard.

The text on the keys and in the predictive text is thin and light, making it more difficult to see than that of the native Apple keyboard.

Availability

The Gboard app is available free at the iTunes App Store. As of now, Gboard is limited to iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, in English and in the US only. Google plans to expand the availability of Gboard later, perhaps even to Android, its own operating system.

Setting Up Gboard on Your iPhone or iPad

After downloading the app to your iDevice, go to:

Settings => General => Keyboard => Keyboards

and swipe the switch for Gboard to the On position to allow full access.

To switch between keyboards, tap the globe icon key to the left of the space bar on your keyboard.

Privacy

Google has issued the following statement about Gboard privacy in the app description:

What Gboard sends to Google:
• When you do a search, Gboard sends your query to Google’s web servers so Google can process your query and send you search results.
• Gboard also sends anonymous statistics to Google to help us diagnose problems when the app crashes and to let us know which features are used most often.

What Gboard doesn’t send to Google:
• Everything else. Gboard will remember words you type to help you with spelling or to predict searches you might be interested in, but this data is stored only on your device. This data is not accessible by Google or by any apps other than Gboard.”

Your Thoughts

Do you like having many features within a keyboard? What features do you like on Gboard? Which features would you like to see added to Gboard?

Share your thoughts in the Comments section below!

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If you are learning English, or know someone who is, check out my weekly personal technology column there. This week’s article: Tech Tools Offer Relaxation Techniques.