Gboard, the Google Keyboard for iOS

by **bdahm** Thu Jul 06, 2017 12:14 pm

iOS has allowed for alternate keyboards for several years now. The swipe-style keyboards have been popular, but one I tried a couple of years ago did not catch my fancy. Google has just released Gboard its version of the swipe keyboard and it’s not too shabby. In fact, it’s really good.

Basically what a swipe keyboard does is instead of plucking at the keys, you just move your finger over the keypad touching all the letters in the word. When you stop the word you wanted shows up in the space in the app where you were positioned. It’s quite amazing! It may also indicate some alternate words in the error correction block on the keyboard, but I have seldom had to go there in the limited amount of time I have been using it. It even generates an extra space when you remove your finger after typing one word and placing it back down for a new word. Overall it’s faster and probably more accurate than the old method.

One I have found is that if I hold my finger too long on the first character of the word, alternate forms of the letter pop up. Another is you will still probably have to go letter by letter for certain proper nouns. Another is that the backspace key is smaller than on the normal keyboard and a little harder to hit.

If you want to give Gboard a try, and you should, you will find it in the AppStore under that name or use this link from your mobile device.

https://appsto.re/us/syGebb.i

To activate an alternate keyboard once it has been downloaded and installed, in Settings go to General ->Keyboard-> Keyboards -Add New Keyboard and select Gboard. Then you can toggle through all your keyboards and select it by pressing the globe to the left of the space bar on your current keyboard.

-Bill