What's your favourite keyboard app? ⌨️
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?
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've tried many, but I always come back to SwiftKey. It was one of the things I missed the most when I tried iOS for some time (SwiftKey on iOS sucks).
Every few months I keep re-trying SwiftKey and the Samsung Keyboard, but I keep going back to GBoard because when I swipe it gets it right a lot more of the time than the other two.
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
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.
I tried SwiftKey for about a week or so a month ago but I'm too used to GBoard to make the switch.
What I like about GB that SK doesn't have or is too different:
- speech to text integrated into the keyboard. The Bing app is probably the best at this, especially for my non-native English accent, too bad SK doesn't have its own implementation
- I can set up the keys to show their long press symbols
- the colon character is at an awkward place for my finger to reach
- GB's swipe function can figure out much more easily what language I wanted to type in
- SK shows every possible accented version of the character that I long pressed on, and the one that I wanted was usually at an awkward place to reach. GB on the other hand sorts those of my native language right next to the original character, and only offers a few that I never use.
I love Multiling, but unfortunately it is not actively supported anymore
Super customisable, helpful for a Colemak user like, and shortcuts for select all, copy, paste etc in ALL text inputs even if they blocked such things. Also many ways to customize text and things like special symbols etc
Grammarly bc it makes really good suggestions bc i word oorly.
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)
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 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.
Since the 99% of the available keyboards doesn't have the Ctrl key for some weird reasons, my options are pretty limited.
For a long time I used BlackBerry Keyboard, but after an update the prediction got abysmally bad.
Now I use Unexpected Keyboard with some modified layout. Doesn't have any dictionary or prediction, but has all the keys I need.
I'm similarly picky and have been unable to leave SwiftKey.
But good news, the beta version recently added image support to the clipboard.
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 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've lived with a custom build of AnySoftKeyboard for several years, where I've made my own Ukrainian keyboard, with the same amount of buttons as English keyboard and extra letters invoked with a long-press, so that I got the same size keys in every language I use. I've abandoned it for Gboard, because of a built-in password manager. Default Cyrillic keyboard has extra letters invoked with a long-press for a bunch of Slavic languages, it's not the same but I would not complain.
Thumbkey made by dessalines (lemmy creator) only keyboard I know of you can use with just your thumb
I've liked SwiftKey a lot more since they added the bing/ai/chatgpt button. Although I'd say about 25 percent of the time it refused to answer my question claiming I was being argumentative or the answer would be unfair.
Still there's tons of themes and the suggestions while not brilliant I'm sure do speed up my typing a lot.
Used Swype until cancelled. Tried many gesture keyboards and Gboard is best now.
Simple Keyboard app from F-Droid (Minimal App)
Hacker's Keyboard. It's the only one other than Gboard I ever use, as it was the only one I had found with a full desktop keyboard. I do terminal and remote desktop shit a lot, so I sometimes need the keys that aren't typically available on a phone keyboard.
SwiftKey... Been using it for years now.
I'm confused about your issue with copying and pasting images with swiftkey. I do it all the time with no issues. Long press copy image - > long press paste. I just tested it copying it into text messages and emails to make sure I'm not insane and it works flawlessly.
I like Gboard, Swiftkey was my favorite for a long time before Gboard seemed to outpace it. Clipboard functionally, both history and images, swipe to delete, text input, it's just a tight experience most of the time.
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 love the features and customisability of samsung keyboard.
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.
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.
AOSP keyboard or Gboard if i'm using a pixel based ROM
Any FOSS keyboard recommendations that support simplified Chinese?
For customizability, I currently use AnySoftKeyboard, and also like Florisboard (although waiting on next word suggestion).