Google Releases Gesture Typing Keyboard App in Google Play
June 10, 2013
By Ashok Bindra, TMCnet Contributor
Google’s (News - Alert) Android enabled gesture typing keyboard is popular but not available on all Android powered smartphones. To overcome that problem and make it accessible to all Android (News - Alert) devices, Google has released a new app called Google Keyboard. The app is aimed for smartphones and tablets running Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and above. It happens to be downloadable directly from Google Play.
Although it is currently available only in English-speaking locales, the company said that more countries will be added soon, reports The Next Web.
As per this report, the app supports gesture typing, which lets the user swipe across the screen from letter to letter to form a word, automatic error correction, word predictions, and voice typing via the device’s microphone. Currently, it features dictionaries for 26 languages (plus keyboard layouts for a dozen more). According to the report, the company is likely to add more soon.
In summary, Google Keyboard’s main features highlighted include gesture typing with dynamic floating preview, voice typing, next-word suggestions and current-word completions. Plus, it offers dictionaries for 26 languages with advanced keyboard layouts and works across all Android powered devices (tablets and phones) running 4.0 and higher version OS.
By making the keyboard app available in the Google Play store, the search engine giant is not only expanding the customer base for the keyboard but it is also learning more about how users actually use its keyboard. Analysts believe it could lead to faster improvements and more features for Android users.
According to media reports, Google is continuing its strategy of updating Android without updating Android. Recently, the company launched new apps like Google Play Music All Access and updated existing apps such as Gmail and Maps, without really updating the OS.
Edited by Alice Koganova