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What's your favourite keyboard app? ⌨️

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?

Im28xwa ,

Google keyboard by a mile but before that Samsung keyboard which I still love, anyway I have zero interest in trying other keyboards

sibloure ,

I use Openboard. I migrated from iOS and found Openboard to be the most familiar, with key borders turned on in settings.

wason , (edited )

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.

anowhere ,
@anowhere@sh.itjust.works avatar

For customizability, I currently use AnySoftKeyboard, and also like Florisboard (although waiting on next word suggestion).

dekatron ,

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.

MakeItCount ,

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

humanplayer2 ,
@humanplayer2@lemmy.ml avatar

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.

MrNemobody ,
@MrNemobody@lemmy.world avatar

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.

humanplayer2 ,
@humanplayer2@lemmy.ml avatar

Exactly!

cole ,
@cole@lemdro.id avatar

you actually can get rid of the mic button now. You can customize the entire top bar

humanplayer2 ,
@humanplayer2@lemmy.ml avatar

Ok, I did that just update over night? Yes, I can remove all the icons! Nice! Thank you!

Byter ,

I’m similarly picky and have been unable to leave SwiftKey.

But good news, the beta version recently added image support to the clipboard.

PlutoniumAcid ,

Same. Typing in 3 languages without having to specify which one, is fantastic with SwiftKey. And it supports the rather obscure Colemak keyboard layout!

mintiefresh ,

I still use Gboard the most. My wife uses Samsung keyboard and prefers it over Gboard.

I don’t have s Samsung phone so I can’t test that.

cultsuperstar Bot ,

I’m the same way regarding quirks. I’ve been using Gboard and for a while bounced between that and Samsung Keyboard. Gboard has the best overall usability for me but a couple things I’m not a fan of: Gboard deleting clipboard history (only from Gboard as it’s still available elsewhere), and including \ as a long press symbol rather than /,where you have to tsp the symbols key and then tap /.

Samsung Keyboard has a few quirks as well, but the biggest was predictive text isn’t as good as Gboard. But I like the customization of it. But I can’t see the symbols on the keys as well as I can on Gboard.

I was a fan of Chroma Keyboard years ago because I liked that it would change color based on the app.

Ghoelian ,

fyi, long-pressing the period key on Gboard gives you some more symbols to choose from, including /.

also includes some symbols that are already behind other keys which is kinda weird.

cultsuperstar Bot ,

Yeah, I know, but it just seemed weird to include \ when / seems to be more widely used? Or maybe it’s just me lol.

Carter ,

I don’t really have a favourite. I use OpenBoard but it has it’s issues. Hopefully Floris will improve enough to become my default.

Ultra980 ,

I love the features and customisability of samsung keyboard.

Super_Stone ,
@Super_Stone@feddit.de avatar

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.

https://feddit.de/pictrs/image/1e863022-4b6e-40a5-8616-d75c2f5562cc.jpeg

jacktherippah ,

I have tried so many keyboards, FOSS one included but nothing is as refined as Gboard without internet access.

schoof ,

How do you disable internet access for Gboard?

jacktherippah ,

Something like Netguard or RethinkDNS will work. Basically an app that creates a firewall using the VPN slot.

gobbling871 ,

I used to love Swiftkey before it sold out to Microsoft. I use Gboard with network permissions off nowadays.

Schaedelbach ,

Aside from the useless features overkill, I still think SwiftKey is the best Android keyboard. I ignore 90% of the stuff they implement. Quite frankly I am almost unable to type quick without it.

revanite ,

Unfortunately as a multi lingual user which includes using a more “exotic” language. There is not much choice asides from either SwiftKey or Gboard (I use SwiftKey)

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