Spend
any time using your phone or tablet and it’s hard to avoid using the
keyboard. Whether knocking out a quick email or typing URLs into your
browser, there’s a limit to what you can get done without having to
type. And chances are that the keyboard baked into your copy of Android
is nothing to write home about — there are few stock keyboards that
really cut the mustard.
Sitting at my desktop or using my laptop, I’m a fairly accomplished
typist — I’m probably not the fastest in the world, but I’m certainly
faster than average. The same cannot really be said when I’m using my
Android devices — touchscreens offer a completely different way of
interacting with a device and it proves, on the most part, to be a
slower form of typing. This is why I find myself on a constant mission
to track down the perfect keyboard. If you’re on a similar quest, and
whatever your preferred style of typing — one-handed, two-handed,
gesture input, just a forefinger — this roundup of the pick of the crop
should help you find a keyboard that suits you.
SwiftKey
A keyboard may seem like something you shouldn’t have to pay for, but
this was the first of its ilk to tempt me into parting with some cash. SwiftKey does
not disappoint; gesture support (or Flow) is impressively accurate as
is word prediction. These two features combined found me flying through
long passages of text in next to no time.
Swiftkey is still one of the keyboards I keep coming back to (I switch
between this and Google Keyboard at the moment) and I often find that I
only have to swipe the first word and the rest is accurately predicted —
obviously this only works in certain circumstances such as standard SMS
replies, I’ve not been able to train the app to write full reviews for
me yet!
Swiftkey supports a large number of languages and has the handy option
to have up to three enabled at the same time and easily switchable. The
one disappointing feat is that there are separate versions for phones
and tablets so you’ll have to make two purchases if you own both types
of devices.
Swiftkey’s signature keyboard with Flow
Kii
Kii is
another swipe-friendly keyboard which prides itself on the fact that it
borrows ideas from many of the other keyboards featured in this
roundup. Skins are supported so there’s scope for changing the look of
your keyboard to suit your mood or the lighting you find yourself in.
There’s also more than one keyboard layout to choose from including an
interesting split option which is ideal for thumb operation on a tablet.
What is irritating is that while the app is free, many of the features
are available as in-app purchases — or at least uninterrupted use
requires an in-app purchase. Voice support and rows of extra buttons are
nice touches, but it is in terms of speed that Kii really excels.
Kii’s split keyboard layout is useful on tablets
GO Keyboard
The GO development team are responsible for a number of extremely
popular apps including the impressive GO Launcher. It’s a shame to put a
dampener on an otherwise great app, but there is a slightly beta-ish
feel to GO Keyboard that is often found in many GO apps.
There are a massive number of themes to choose from to help with
customization, as there are emoji, but many of them are garish,
amateur-looking affairs. This feeling is not helped by badly worded
descriptions and options that have clearly been poorly translated into
English. However, switching between different keyboard layouts is little
more than a side swipe away which is handy for anyone who works in more
than one language — and there are dozens to choose from.
Go Keyboard supports themes, emojis and several input methods
Google Keyboard
One of the latest additions to the keyboard smorgasbord is Google’s very
own offering. Lifted directly from devices such as the Nexus 7, this
keyboard won over huge armies of fans long before it was made available
to all Android devices. It is very hard not to love this keyboard as it
feels like it really belongs in Android — as well it should be — and
while it may not seem all that impressive, looks can be deceptive.
Lurking beneath a rather plain exterior is arguable the best gesture
typing available, in both speed and accuracy.
There may not be a massive number of options in terms of layouts and
extra settings, but what is present works superbly and you’ll soon
wonder how you coped with any other keyboard — that’s how I felt, at
least, and I’m hard to impress. There’s also a very useful hidden
feature that can be used to ape the likes of Text Expander and further
reduce the amount of typing you need to do. When adding new words to
your personal dictionary, it’s possible to add shortcuts — this means
you can opt to automatically expand ‘brb’ into ‘be right back’, but
there are endless other possibilities.
Google’s own keyboard looks and feels at home on Android
Swype Keyboard
Swype is
the original swiping keyboard. Where it led, countless others apps
followed. Many have tried to copy it, but few have matched it and fewer
still bettered it. Prediction levels here are staggeringly good and you
don’t even need to be particularly accurate with your gestures as the
app does a good job of interpreting what you mean based on the shape you
draw. Two key strengths of Swype, and something that helps to improve
its accuracy, are its ability to pick up word and names from your
contacts, emails and other documents, as well as the fact that the
dictionary is crowd-sourced.
The predictions dictionary is constantly updated with words that are
trending around the world and this extends into next-word prediction –
so you should find that you can enter the name of a brand new movie or
TV programme very quickly. With voice recognition and a universal app
suitable for tablets and phones — additional modes are available for
tablet users — it’s difficult not to recommend Swype. If you’re yet to
try it out, install it this instant to see what all the fuss is about.
Swype offers several layouts for phones and tablets
TouchPal
Gesture-based or sliding typing, as you’ve probably noticed from this roundup, is becoming the norm. TouchPal looks
to up the ante with its Curve feature which aims to make typing even
faster by eliminating the need to swipe words in their entirety. Another
time saving feature makes it easier to access numbers and symbols.
Rather than tapping and holding a key to view a list of alternative
options, you can instead swipe up or down for instant access.
Despite having no cost associated with it, TouchPal’s range of supported
languages is wide and varied. To help with the personalization of
suggestions and auto-completes, information can be imported from our
address book and online updates ensure that a new supply of words is
always available. Or course, there is the usual raft of skins available,
but the key thing here is speed. TouchPal is undeniably fast – even
though this does come at the expense of accuracy.
TouchPal trades accuracy for speed
Smart Keyboard Pro
As if to prove that swipe typing is not the only option for getting characters into apps, Smart Keyboard Pro takes
a much more traditional approach to things. Everything is much more
basic here, and the app closely resembles the look and feel of the iOS
keyboard. This is by no means a bad thing but you are restricted to
typing by pressing each character you want to enter.
For fans of old technology, Smart Keyboard Pro has a great feature – the
resurrection of T9 prediction text input using a traditional phone pad
layout! There are no fancy extras like next word prediction but it does
win points for being highly customizable.
Smart Keyboard goes old-school with its iOS look and functions
Other Unique Options
Above are some of the highlights that are to be currently found in the
Play store. You’ll probably have noticed that, while there are a few
subtle differences here and there, for the most part these are keyboards
that look and feel fairly similar to each other.
Minuum
One project that looks to disturb the norm is Minuum,
which has been funded through Indiegogo and will initially be released
for Android devices, with the possibility of iOS, Blackberry and Windows
Phone versions to follow. The key aim of the project is to free up
screen space by shrinking the keyboard as much as possible.
The look is unique. The tiny strip you use to type looks too small and
fiddly to be usable – a standard keyboard has been compressed onto a
single line – but by employing a combination of letter and word
prediction, in the sample videos at least, Minuum appears to fare very
well indeed. It is an outlandish design that will not be to everyone’s
taste, but it is going to create a storm when it hits the Play Store.
Minuum’s unique one-strip layout
ZoomKee
If you’re looking for something a little more out of the ordinary, ZoomKee is
worth a look. There’s a clue in the name here, and the key selling
point — although the app is actually free — is a zoom function. Tap a
word that has been typed and it will be displayed in a larger view
complete with a zoomed in keyboard. This has been done to make word
editing easier, but it does mean that you have to be willing to slide
the keyboard from side to side as it is not entirely visible in its
magnified mode.
ZoomKee’s signature zooming function
Thumb Keyboard
Another keyboard of note is Thumb Keyboard ($2.35
from Google Play) which is available for phones and tablets and, as the
name suggest, allows for quick thumb driven typing. At first glance it
looks like nothing out of the ordinary, but there is an intriguing split
mode that make it easier and faster to type with just thumbs and a
personalized shortcut bar. There are different layouts for different
sized screens but this is definitely a keyboard for fans of two-handed
typing.
Thumb Keyboard packs a split layout and a nifty shortcut bar
Do you have a favorite keyboard that we’ve missed? Have you found your
perfect input app or do you find that you constantly switch from one to
another? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments.
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