So, up front, I’ll admit I’m one of those guys that gets hung up on tiny, largely irrelevant quirks in apps. Yeah, I’m great fun at parties.
So, what’s your favourite keyboard app? I keep coming back to SwiftKey. I feel like it’s the best typing experience for me, with fairly accurate prediction and correction — although it’s far from perfect, of course. I’ve seen plenty of people complain about it, and apart from Microsoft adding Bing to it, it’s not received much in the way of innovation or useful updates since they bought it.
I particularly like that a long press on the backspace key will delete one whole word at a time, speeding up the longer you hold it down. I simply haven’t found the backspace methods on Gboard or the Samsung keyboard (which used to be Swype I guess?) to be as predictable or reliable. Gboard’s swipe back doesn’t feel predictable in what it will do, and Samsung’s backspace is more like iOS.
I also find SwiftKey to be the best at remembering sequences of words; if I start typing my address, it’ll generally remember each successive word and offer it as the main prediction on the top row. Samsung and Gboard both do that to some extent, but I just haven’t found them to be as reliably predictable in the results.
On the other hand, I hate that SwiftKey doesn’t can’t add an image to its clipboard. Copying and pasting images is a breeze with both Gboard and Samsung’s keyboard, but with SwiftKey I pretty much have to download/screengrab and upload any image I want to insert in a chat or post.
So, that’s it. Rant over! What’s your favourite keyboard app, and does anything irritate you about it?
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I use Gboard because it just works. I would like to move to a FOSS keyboard but every one I’ve tried become frustrating to use.
If you just want to distance yourself from Google, give OpenBoard a try. It’s GBoard without the G. It’s been working just the same for me, except for some reason it spontaneously decided to stop automatically capitalizing “I”.
I’m replying with open board, let’s see how it does.
There’s a fork of OpenBoard that enables Glide typing, in case you’re in interested in that:
Gboard
autocorrect and suggestion are great both in English and French and the performance is smooth af
Previously I was using Swiftkey because at that time the Google keyboard wasn’t supporting multiple language simultaneously but Swiftkey’s performance was extremely bad. As soon as Gboard added simultaneous multi language support, I switched and never looked back
Coming from SwiftKey, I’m trying Gboard just now,but how fo you survive that it doesn’t support auto-space after punctuation in anything but US English? I have Danish as my layout, with English as the second language.
It’ll for sure take me some time to get used to.
I miss SwiftKey’s long press to delete a word (though the swipe left from backspace might be learned, and elike the easy access to parentheses)
It messes with me that the word that’ll be inserted when I press space is not always the middle suggestion.
It annoys me that I can’t get rid of the mic button, despite having disabled voice.
you actually can get rid of the mic button now. You can customize the entire top bar
Ok, I did that just update over night? Yes, I can remove all the icons! Nice! Thank you!
YES! I don’t get why it supports auto-space after punctuation only in US English. I mean… seriously? After all these year. If they want, I can implement it for them.
Exactly!
I use OpenBoard, its simplistic, but it works well for my needs, and its probably the best FOSS option I’ve seen. Florisboard has a lot of potential so I’ll probably switch to that in the future when it improves, its FOSS and pretty close to Gboard.
I have to keep pitching OpenBoard with Gesture typing because it combines the best from OB and FB (and GB I guess) and it saved my sanity
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Again sorry for keeping to pitch this but there’s OpenBoard with Gesture typing, a fucking lifesaver!
I use GBoard but since you asked for favorite, mine is Word Flow, Windows Phone’s keyboard. When MS killed Windows Phone they kind of ported it to iOS but never to Android.
The Windows 10 keyboard is very similar to this Word Flow and the closest I’ve been to recreate it on Android is using RBoard and the Xbox theme but since I don’t have a real reason to root I haven’t done it again, so I’m just using the regular GBoard. Also, last time I checked (few years ago) the Xbox theme didn’t have a dark mode so that’s another reason not to use it.
I’d use SwiftKey but they keys are to thin. I’ve tried using skins like the Surface Duo but still too thin for me.
Another keyboard I liked was TouchPal but I believe was removed from the Play Store for having malware, if I recall correctly.
SwiftKey. There’s some things I don’t love about it, but I’m trapped by swipe punctuation and predicting emoji from words. Every so often I get mad at SK and try something else, but it never lasts.
Hahaha, this is me. Nailed it.
I prefer SwiftKey. Been using it since 2011 or so. I tried gboard and it’s… Fine? I mainly use SwiftKey for a few reasons:
- I prefer the minimal theme that I’m using.
- I’ve used it forever
- I like the way it handles gifs and emojis
- Swiping for punctuation is extremely quick. I dislike having to hold it on other keyboards.
I wholeheartedly agree with the swiping punctuation. That and swiping on the space bar to switch keyboard configuration is the main reason for sticking to SwiftKey. Writing in several languages where you need special characters in each language, having to hold down a button in order to switch the keyboard is frustratingly slow.
One extra point is also that SwiftKey inserts the most likely prediction when clicking space. Whenever I’ve used gboard, it’s so frustrating, that my fingers have to click the prediction in order to insert it.
I’ve tried so many other keyboard, but stick with SwiftKey because of the swiping punctuation next to the space bar. I just can’t get used to anything else.
It’s so habitual at this point and I was really frustrated when something else wouldn’t do that.
Adding a comma or a question mark on iOS is maddening when you’re used to SwiftKey.
Using GBoard begrudgingly because there’s no better alternative for me personally. I depend on the swipe typing and gestures a lot. Personalisation is off, and I don’t use the next-word suggestions that often.
I don’t really like SwiftKey’s design or its Microsoft affiliation. I wish there was a good open-source alternative. Florisboard looks promising, but the last time I tried it, it was still lacking in features.
I’m similarly picky and have been unable to leave SwiftKey.
But good news, the beta version recently added image support to the clipboard.
Same. Typing in 3 languages without having to specify which one, is fantastic with SwiftKey. And it supports the rather obscure Colemak keyboard layout!
I have tried so many keyboards, FOSS one included but nothing is as refined as Gboard without internet access.
How do you disable internet access for Gboard?
Something like Netguard or RethinkDNS will work. Basically an app that creates a firewall using the VPN slot.
I use Florisboard with a custom M3 theme. If I remember I tried a bunch of keyboards and ended up sticking with FlorisBoard.
I also like Florisboard for the customizability. Hoping it gets next word suggestion features soon.
Yeah, I also do wish the glide typing was a bit more accurate.
For customizability, I currently use AnySoftKeyboard, and also like Florisboard (although waiting on next word suggestion).
I just wanted to have a keyboard thats not cluttered with tons of superfluous features so I use simple keyboard configured in a way that it only types and nothing else. I even turned off spellcheck and autocomplete, though that is mostly due to me having bad experiences some years back.
I’m still using swype. Nothing else competes, and the two closest are owned by the two companies I’m least willing to use a keyboard by.
Any FOSS keyboard recommendations that support simplified Chinese?
