Category: Google Gboard

One of the best apps of late last year was Gboard from Google.  It replaced Google Keyboard and it is a much smarter, faster keyboard for your Android devices and for iPhone, where it debuted originally.  Now Google has quietly added a nice new feature to Gboard when you use it within Google Assistant.  It provides you with common search phrases just above the keyboard to make interacting a bit faster.

Assuming that you have Google Assistant on your phone (if you have Android Marshmallow or Nougat, you likely do), just long press the Home button on your phone to bring up Assistant.  Normally at this point I find it faster just to speak to Assistant to get the information I need but there are times that I can’t do that (I’m in a quiet place for example).  After you open up Assistant, note the keyboard icon in the lower left corner.  Tap it and that opens up your keyboard so you can type a query.

A new update to Google’s Gboard is rolling out in the Play Store that brings a big jump in support of Indic languages.  With this update, 22 new languages are supported and through the use of Machine Learning and working with natural speakers of the languages throughout India, transliteration and keyboard layouts are included for all of the languages.  The update now brings the total number of languages supported up to 185.

The new languages supported include: Assamese, Bengali, Bodo (Devanagari, Bengali), Dogri (Devanagari, Arabic), Gujarati, Hindi (Devanagari, Hinglish), Kannada, Kashmiri (Devanagari, Arabic), Konkani (Devanagari, Latin), Maithili (Devanagari), Malayalam, Manipuri (Bengali), Marathi (Devanagari), Nepali (Devanagari), Odia, Punjabi (Gurmukhi, Arabic), Sanskrit (Devanagari), Santali (Ol chiki, Latin), Sindhi (Devanagari, Arabic), Tamil, Telugu, Urdu (Arabic).

For those who have one of these as their mother language, this update will make it much easier to communicate with others, especially with the transliteration feature.

After making its debut on iOS some months ago, Google Gboard is now starting to roll out to Android users.  The update is coming to Google Keyboard which, along with the name change, comes with some outstanding features and customizations to the keyboard app.  The update has just started rolling out to the Play Store so it will be a few days before everyone sees it.  Once you do, you will see why all our iPhone friends have loved this app.  It has a GIF keyboard, emoji keyboard, Google search built in and is highly customizable with themes and other things to make your typing life easier.

To be clear, the updated is version 6.0 for those keeping score at home but really, you’ll know you got it when you see Gboard as an update option in the Store app.