On Friday, May 13, Google has launched the Gboard, a new app for iOS devices. The application links Google search directly with your mobile device's keyboard.
Google has announced its new iOS app on a company blog. According to the post, the new application for iOS devices called Gboard offers swipe-based access to GIFs and typing. The app also provides easy access to common keyboard functions, such as word predictions and emojis.
Tech Crunch reports that earlier this year Google's Gboard app has been rumored to be in development and it seems that the speculations were accurate. The iOS keyboard offers the functions previously rumored in the original report.
Among the most interesting features of the Gboard is its direct integration with Google's services. Without exiting their keyboard and launching the Google app or a browser, users can tap the included "G" icon in order to immediately search Google.
This integration allows users to easily and quickly make the most usual searches for things like restaurant and business listings, news articles, weather, flight times and more right from their keyboard. After giving app access to their location the first time when they launch the feature, users can just tap to paste the search information into their chat.
This search information is presented to users in a card-style layout at the bottom of the screen, where each listing has its own card. The information from the card appears immediately when tapped in their conversation, notepad or email. It is pasted as hyperlinked text, so users can do things like phone a business, pull up the listing in Google Maps or perform a web search for the item in question.
In order to copy the actual card, users can also just tap on the "Paste" button from iOS's "Edit" menu. This is an image and not hyperlinked, but it presents the information in an attractive format. All details are included, whether that is flight times, today's temperature, a business' open hours and address or whatever else users may have searched.
According to Droid Life, customers have been asking why the Gboard is not available on Android as well. Bri Connelly, who works on "product @ Google," replied on the Gboard listing at Product Hunt that the developers team is working right now to bring the same functionality to Android.
