The Android style Google Gboard for iOS users, which was launched in the US last May has now come to the UK. The app is now available to download from the UK App Store.
Gboard App
The keyboard app, which is exclusively for iOS users, has an added search engine on it. Images and gifs can be searched through the keyboard and sent right to a person via the keyboard. Users can now send links and any search results they get directly from within the iMessage platform. The need to switch between any apps is totally removed. The keyboard also has an inbuilt emoji search engine. Essentially we could see the end of endlessly searching through emoji’s as you search for the one you want might well be truly over.
Google has also added a new feature on the Gboard which they are calling the ‘Glide Typing’ feature. Through this feature, users can then input their text into the Gboard by simply swiping through various characters on the keyboard and not have to lift their fingers off the screen. This feature has already been long available on the Android keyboard l, but on the iOS platform has only been seen through third party apps such as Swype.
After learning a user’s typing habits and all their word choices, Glide will help input something basing on what they think the user wants to type. Reporters who tested the technology said that it wasn’t entirely accurate when they had used it since it got most of the words wrong. In theory, the technology is all about giving users a chance to input text without doing the laborious work of hammering in every character individually.
On top of the Glide feature, the keyboard also has an almost same pattern with the native iOS 9 keyboard, and even features a predictive text bar on top of the keyboard just as the iOS 9 keyboard.
The release of the new keyboard is coming days after Apple recently announced new changes which are coming to the iMessage platform after iOS 10’s release in the autumn. Apple will definitely be pressured into releasing a platform which will rival that of the Google keyboard. They have to bring out a system that can embed web links and videos all together as cards. The Apple platform does not seem to have in-app search functionality that the Gboard has at this moment, however.
Gboard is already available to download on the UK App Store now.
