Say you’re texting with a friend about tomorrow’s brekky plans. They ask you for the address. Until now it’s worked like this: You leave your texting app, open Search, find the restaurant, copy the address, switch back to your texts, paste the address into a message, and finally, hit send.
Searching and sending stuff on your phone shouldn’t be that difficult. With Gboard, you can search and send all kinds of things—restaurant info, flight times, news articles—right from your keyboard. Anything you’d search on Google, you can search with Gboard. Results appear as cards with the key information front and center, such as the phone number, ratings and hours. With one tap, you can send it to your friend and you keep the conversation going.
You can search for more than just Google search results. Instead of scrolling to find? or ? , search for “dancer” and find that emoji you were looking for instantly. Even better—you can search for the perfect GIF to show people how you’re really feeling.
Emoji search
GIF search
Gboard also has Glide Typing, which lets you type words by sliding your finger from key to key instead of tapping—so everything you do is just a little bit faster.
Glide typing
Joining text, search and emoji suggestions, you’ll now see GIF suggestions too. Say you’ve got a reason to celebrate so you text your friend “let’s party!” — now, you’ll see a suggestion to search for relevant party GIFs with one tap.
Smart GIF suggestions
Whether you like a keyboard that blends into the background or shows your personal style, today’s update is for you. For those who like a more low-key style, in addition to the current light keyboard, we’re adding a dark keyboard so that Gboard can blend in with darker apps. We’re also introducing the ability to select a personal image from your camera roll to show behind your keyboard, so you’ll never be without your favorite picture from that trip to Crater Lake.
A personal keyboard