I heard that Google released a really cool new alternative keyboard for my iPhone and iPad called GBOARD. I’m in, I love Google. How do I get it and what does it do?
You’re quite the Google fan. Very impressive. Turns out, however, that in this instance it’s warranted as GBoard is a really cool addition to the iPhone and as third-party keyboards go, it’s the most useful and feature-filled yet released. In addition to letting you do searches right from the keyboard entry box, it also supports “glide” typing, offers up a library of animated GIFs and lets you enter or send any of the search results you find, super easily.
What’s “glide typing”? It’s what other keyboards call swipe or swype typing and it takes a bit of getting used to: You put your finger on the first letter of the word you want to enter, then drag it from letter to letter. So “Dave” would be “D” drag to “A” drag to “V” drag to “E”, without ever lifting up your finger. And it’s remarkable how accurate it is with Gboard in my own testing.
To start, go to the App Store on your iPhone or iPad. Then search for “Gboard“:
You know the drill, right? Tap “GET”, then enter your account credentials as needed. Then download. Then tap “OPEN”…
Swipe left and right to get a bit of the intro tutorial, then tap on “Get Started” to proceed.
And you’ll find that there’s some fiddling to actually install it correctly:
But don’t worry about that. Just follow my steps as I’ll show you exactly how to get Gboard up and running!
You’re basically done with the Gboard app. Forever, actually, as it’s really just the keyboard and either you have it available or you don’t. Tap on “Settings“, then swipe down to “Keyboards” and tap on it.
Here’s what you’ll see:
Ah, that’s where the “Add New Keyboard…” option is hiding. Tap on it to add Gboard.
There it is, under “third party keyboards”. Fair enough, that’s what it is — and if you’ve installed the Starbucks keyboard, it’d show up on this list too, btw.
Tap on “Gboard” to install it.
Done? No, no you’re not. 🙁
Tap on the “Gboard” entry on this screen, because you still have to grant it full access…
Tap to change the status of the slider and a rather alarming pop-up will warn you that you’re allowing Gboard to see everything you type:
Third-party keyboards don’t function without this access, so while the warning is rather dire, you’ll need to tap “Allow” to proceed. And once you do, you’re done, and Gboard’s ready to use.
Sort of. If you’ve never used a third-party keyboard before, you need to learn one important step…
See the little globe on the lower left? That’s how you cycle between keyboards that you’ve enabled, whether emoji, foreign languages, or the Google keyboard. So tap on it until you see the Gboard show up:
There it is! You can tell by the colorful “G” on the top left.
Now the fun begins. Start by tapping on the “G” then typing in a few letters to begin a search. I’ll use “totten”:
It’s fetching likely possibilities based both on popular searches and your own search history. When I type “totten” I indeed am referring to the Tottenham Hotspurs English soccer team, so I’ll tap on “tottenham schedule” and Google shows a bunch of tiny results:
There’s what I want to send, the schedule for the next match. A single tap on that box and the relevant information shows up automatically in the composition box:
Crazy cool, eh?
You can also get to a neatly organized list of all the standard iOS emoticons within the Gboard:
Oh, and “GIF” on the very bottom? Tap on it and you’ll find that library of animated GIF images. And if you’re just looking at the Gboard keyboard itself, of course, you can use “glide” to enter data.
All in all, a great addition to your iPhone with tons of capabilities. Very worth the install!