I stopped caring about typing speed — Gboard made it irrelevant

Although I type a lot more on my desktop, I care about the typing experience on phones. I wasn’t a fan of typing on my handset, but Gboard changed my mind.

This is not to say that I started to love typing on my phone again, but I’m more optimistic than ever that typing on a smartphone will only get better from here.

However, I don’t care about typing on my phone the same way as I do on my desktop.

Typing on both devices has its pros and cons, but what I began to appreciate more about Gboard is that it has changed my perception of typing on my phone.

Gboard addressed my biggest fear about typing on a mobile phone. This was the only reason I stuck to Gboard and never looked at the alternatives.

The biggest perception change was about typing speed on my phone. I stopped caring about typing speed because Gboard made it irrelevant.

Related

I tried a weird 16-key keyboard, and it made me rethink phone typing

26 letters, but only 16 keys?

Posts 28
By  Andy Boxall

Gboard’s predictive text makes typing speed irrelevant

Gboard has plenty of fancy features that sound good on paper, but they hardly come in handy for things that actually matter.

Gboard’s text prediction isn’t one of those features. While it can’t suggest words in its suggestion strip with great accuracy every time, it gets the job done most of the time, especially while having casual conversations.

Since it can predict what you’ll type next and suggest words accordingly, you don’t need to type those words manually. All you need to do is tap the suggested word.

It keeps suggesting words as you type. Gboard also learns your unique writing style and makes adjustments to your suggestions to match your style.

The word prediction has become better since I started using Gboard as the default keyboard app on my phone.

To enable predictive text on Gboard, go to the keyboard's Settings, tap Corrections and suggestions > Suggestions, then enable the Smart Compose, Suggestion strip, Word suggestions, and Next-word suggestions toggles.

Gboard also has support for what Google calls “Glide typing.” This allows you to slide your finger from letter to letter instead of tapping keys individually.

So, if you want to type “best,” start at ‘b’, and then glide through ‘e,’ ‘s,’ ‘t’ before lifting your finger. This is also known as swipe typing.

Gboard also supports voice typing. So, if you have clarity in your mind about what you want to type, voice typing is better than tapping individual keys. Tap the mic icon in the upper-right corner, then allow access to the microphone and start speaking.

Gboard has nifty editing tools and can fix mistakes in real time

Gboard’s Autocorrect feature fixes mistakes instantly, so the chances of you making typos are less.

Not only that, Gboard also automatically capitalizes the first word of each sentence. So, unlike in the case of a physical keyboard on a desktop, I don’t need to press the shift key and then start typing to capitalize the first letter.

However, this isn’t exclusive to the Gboard app. All the smartphone keyboard apps automatically capitalize the first word of each sentence.

Gboard deserves credit for taking this to another level. If you make a mistake and use a lowercase letter instead of an uppercase one in the middle of a sentence, Gboard can help you quickly fix it.

All you do is select the word by tapping it and then tap the Shift key on the on-screen keyboard. This will capitalize the first letter, and another tap on the Shift key will capitalize all the letters that constitute the word.

Of all the nifty editing tools in the Gboard app, my favorite ones are the ‘Undo’ gesture and the backspace swipe gesture.

The backspace swipe gesture allows you to delete multiple words at once by sliding your finger to the left after tapping the backspace key. This is faster than tapping the delete key repeatedly to delete a piece of text.

Subscribe to the newsletter for smarter mobile typing

Get practical Gboard and mobile-typing guidance by subscribing to the newsletter — clear how-tos, feature breakdowns (predictive text, glide/swipe typing, voice input, backspace-swipe, Undo) and real-world editing tips to improve your phone typing.

Get Updates

By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime.

Even if you delete more text than you intended, the ‘Undo’ gesture will save you. It’ll quickly undo the mistake you made.

The undo button appears in the suggestion bar after you delete some text. If you deleted it by mistake, one tap on the undo button will bring back the deleted text.

You can try the backspace swipe key again and select the text you want to delete.

These editing tools also indirectly help me draft my articles faster on my phone.

Typing speed is dead — and most of us didn’t notice

The first electronic device that I used was a desktop computer. I bought my first mobile phone years after I started using a desktop.

Typing speed left a strong impression on me because I used my desktop to type words long before I bought my first phone.

After using Gboard for years, I no longer care about my typing speed on my phone. I don’t even try to type faster using Gboard — I type less.