Barely a month after Google upgraded its keyboard app to version 6.0 and renamed it GBoard, the number of installs on Google Play have exceeded 500 million, putting it in the same league as apps like Microsoft Skype and file-sharing app Dropbox.
The massive success is unprecedented in such a short period of time, and signals the fact that Google brought in some very sorely needed features. Some of these are multi-language support on a single keyboard display, custom dictionary syncing across all devices using GBoard, Glide Typing (earlier known as Gesture Typing), Search and Share and so on.
Some of these have been on Google Keyboard in a different form, but a lot of new functionality has been introduced in version 6.0 as well, such as the ability to search for an embed .gif images on your chat applications, YouTube, Email and anywhere else that a key board is required.
Google Assistant is the only missing piece at this point, but now that they’ve brought in search and share capability, we believe that will be the inevitable next step to making the GBoard a truly useful keyboard.
GBoard was originally launched in May 2016 for iOS devices on Apple’s iTunes. It’s not clear why it took a full seven months to hit Android, Google’s own operating system. Could it be that they were waiting to launch it on the Google Pixel before rolling it out to the Android community?
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