My public writing. You can reach me at @eitland@mstdn.io

GBoard keyboard on Android

Filed under #ux and #android

Some time in 2015 I left SwiftKey behind and started depending on the built in keyboard of my phone (Samsung) which I guess had been been licensed or copied from SwiftKey. The reason was that while the predictions where good it had started picking up some bad habits, particularly it would capitalize the letter i even in Norwegian sentences, something that doesn't make sense at all. It had also removed the option to disable auto correct at some point which meant it would “correct” perfectly fine words into funny, embarrassing or dangerous ones (just like iOS do today if you don't stop it.)

Today I reinstalled SwiftKey. The reasons ar GBoard, the standard keyboard app in Android One

So far SwiftKey has impressed me today. Intelligent predictions, no snags, neither in English nor in Norwegian.

And GBoard, just like SwiftKey 4 years ago just doesn't seem to get it.

One thing to be aware of though:

If privacy is important to you, make sure you take the time to prevent sending of snippets back to SwiftKey. These settings are located in at least two different places, just so you are aware.