There are so many replacement keyboards available for Android that people often forget about Google’s own, default keyboard which actually works surprisingly well. Google have updated their in-house keyboard to version 4.1, and it brings some new features, while getting rid of some that aren’t needed anymore.
One of the best new features is cross-device dictionary sync, which allows your customisations to carry from your phone to your tablet, or from one phone to the next, meaning you don’t have to teach your phone all the swearwords you’ve spent so long teaching it already! Unfortunately, though, if you use Google Apps, you’re unable to take advantage of this — for now, the feature is for gmail.com accounts only.
Another new feature is the ability to type emoji with a physical keyboard, ideal for those who use a tablet with a bluetooth keyboard for example. Simply tap the Alt key and the emoji panel will appear which you can then move through using arrow keys.
Some features have been removed, though. The notable removal is ‘phrase swiping’, which allowed you to swipe whole sentences by swiping down to the spacebar between words. However, this feature never worked especially well so its probably not going to be greatly missed. Text correction has also been simplified; instead of offering an aggressiveness level, the switch is simply now on or off.
As with most mid-week Google updates, its on the Play Store now and the update will become available to you sometime today or tomorrow. For those who can’t wait, you can grab the new update on APK Mirror.
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