Gboard is the free, official digital keyboard offered for Android devices by Google.
As is true for most Google products, it offers extreme functionality, with high quality design, a lot of customization and timesaving techniques like gesture typing and sharing at a keypress.
As a 3rd party keyboard solution for android devices, you must weigh up whether the features and downsides it offers compared to the default device keyboards is with the switch, as well as the extra RAM usage and potential data sharing risks.
Whatever it is you want to know about it, we are here to tell you all about the Gboard app on Android.
What Is Gboard App On Android — More than standard
Gboard is simply the default keyboard that you’ll use when typing on an Android phone. Also referred to as a Google keyboard, it’s one of the best options if you’re not using an iOS device.
Sometimes you’re looking for more than just your standard digital keyboard options, or you’re tired of your particular autocorrect changing words you don’t want it to.
Well for these people, a 3rd party keyboard, like the Gboard app on Android, has you covered.
The truth is that a lot of people weren’t aware there were 3rd party digital keyboard – but there are actually quite a lot of them out there, all with various different advantages and disadvantages.
Features of the Gboard keyboard
Google focuses on user functionality and frankly has gone above and beyond to provide a user with everything they could possibly need from a 3rd party keyboard application.
The ability to flip it into a floating keyboard is just one of the features you get with the Gboard keyboard, as it also has a full predictive typing engine.
Voice typing lets you dictate messages to input hands-free, and is exceptionally useful when writing down notes and thoughts. Or, it can be useful when reading something on one screen, to input it into your device without having to type it.
Glide typing allows you to run your finger over the keyboard from letter to letter without needing to tap, and its algorithm works out what word you wanted to type. It actually works surprisingly well on most Android phones.
Fast searching by pressing the G letter on your keyboard, allows you to perform a google search without opening your browser – this is exclusive to the Gboard keyboard. This is actually a fairly effective way to save time and is an extremely useful feature.
It also allows you to find Gboard Gifs and emojis that you can send on the fly. The predictive typing software that Google keyboard uses is the best out there.
Integrated with Google translate, the keyboard boasts over 120 languages and is able to autocorrect as you type for all of them is an invaluable tool Gboard offers for multilingual users, or users worldwide.
In each of those languages, the app will also “learn” how you type and communicate, and will adapt its autocorrect and word choices based on your usage over time.
Customization of Google’s keyboard
In addition to an extensive suite of features available with the app, Google also built in incredible personal customization.
You can change everything from the keyboard background image, the size of the keyboard, to whether or not there are gaps between the letters.
Customization also comes in the form of adding words to your dictionary if you commonly type something that the system doesn’t recognize, such as nicknames, or slang. This doesn’t happen automatically and needs to be added yourself.
If you want even more customization, you may want to consider downloading an emoji keyboard, which you can find good options for on both iOS and Android devices.
You may need to change app permissions to allow the app to work, as you need to download gBoard and give it access to your device.
Setting up Gboard
The setup of Gboard is really smooth, easy and step-by-step. Once you download it from the google apps store, it will prompt you through a series of steps.
This is great as it avoids confusion with finding the relevant settings you need to enable to get to use it.
First it will ask you to select Gboard in your language & input settings, offering a button to tap which takes you there.
Once you’ve done that it will prompt you to set additional languages if you would like to.
You can either tap the highlighted text to add languages, or tap done to continue and begin using the app, where it will take you to the settings page so you can start with customizing the options you would like as mentioned previously.
Privacy
Of course, being a Google app there is always the concern over privacy – for both iPhone users and those using Android phones are massively concerned with privacy in the modern day.
Naturally, the app collects data that you type into it, including usernames, passwords, and credit card information as stated in its data policy.
While some people may be okay with this as Google is hardly going to start leaking login information, some people will be concerned as to why bother exposing yourself to the risk in the first place.
Conclusion
Gboard is an excellent app for android, providing a high-quality digital keyboard and a range of useful time-saving features integrated seamlessly into the interface.
While it does offer a lot of great features not available on the default app, the main drawback would be the mandatory data-sharing packaged with the keyboard.
This is Google after all, and the app is free because they are selling your data and interests, obtained by what you type.
If you are okay with Google storing your usernames, passwords and card details in exchange for a free app that offers some useful features, this is probably the best virtual keyboard app available.
