Google’s gBoard iOS Keyboard Nearly Nails It

I love my iOS keyboard. There’s something awesome about the way it just works. (RIP Steve Jobs and your relentless focus on UX)

Plus voice-to-text.

But thanks to this week’s TWiG podcast, I heard about gBoard, the iOS keyboard from Google that I’m trying and I actually love.

I’ve installed swiftkey, minimum, workflow and others, but this is the first one I can see replacing my default keyboard.

GBoard #loveit

The autocorrect is smart, typing is easy by tapping or swiping, it seems to remember things I have said before as often as simply autocorrecting my words, and when the thing I am typing can be easily said as an emoji, it prompts that option in the toolbar as well. Nice.

Plus there’s the big “G” button, which tapping now allows me to search emoji, the web, gifs or static images in one place. Want to know the weather or the nearest pizza place? Easy. Search for it, and contacts/cards/info/images/etc show up in the search results. Tap what you want and its either copied for easy use or put right into your message thread.

Could Be Better #cbb

If the Google gods read this, I would want the following tweaks to be considered in future iterations:

1. Speech to Text: If I could talk to the GBoard (via Google Assistant) that would completely and forever change my need to use the iOS Keyboard. Have a small mic on the screen or else when I press the “G” perhaps enable that it automatically listens. Maybe a keyword like “Reply” before text can differentiate between text to be replied and a new google search.
2. Google Assistant: I can only imagine how amazing this would be if the Keyboard became the thing enabling me to use Google Assistant more often. Today, on iOS, I have to open the Google app to use GA, but if the keyboard had “Hey Google!” enabled (perhaps just when plugged in or something) this would pretty much eliminate my need to rely on Siri for most (all?) things.
3. Better UI for Autocorrect: In using the keyboard, the one thing I noticed is that the iOS autocorrect UI is better, prompting me that it’s going to change a word through the little bubble that pops up. I can elect to accept the change or dismiss it (say, if I am typing a name). GBoard doesn’t tell me its about to change a word — it just changes it. #cbb