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 have tried so many keyboards, FOSS one included but nothing is as refined as Gboard without internet access.
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.
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:
I use Openboard. I migrated from iOS and found Openboard to be the most familiar, with key borders turned on in settings.
Google keyboard by a mile but before that Samsung keyboard which I still love, anyway I have zero interest in trying other keyboards
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.
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.
Yeah, I know, but it just seemed weird to include \ when / seems to be more widely used? Or maybe it’s just me lol.
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.
Any FOSS keyboard recommendations that support simplified Chinese?
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.
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.
I used to love Swiftkey before it sold out to Microsoft. I use Gboard with network permissions off nowadays.
I’ve heard that SwiftKey tracks keystrokes, so I’m in the same boat as you. SwiftKey is incredible, but I’d rather lean more into privacy focused alternatives.
I use SwiftKey but block internet access to it.
Does that interfere with any functionality?
