The keyboard is integral to how you use a smartphone, so when it’s not good, you notice it. Over the past few months, I’ve really been noticing just how much better the keyboard experience on Google Pixel is compared to everywhere else, and it’s a little crazy that no one else seems to measure up.
What keyboard you use on your smartphone varies by device, though modern operating systems tend to have plenty of options for third-party keyboards too.
On Google Pixel smartphones, the keyboard available out of the box is Google’s Gboard, which is also used on many other Android phones. Gboard is a relatively simple keyboard app at its core. It supports input with a variety of layouts and languages, and also offering theming options to customize the look. But, beyond the basics, you also get GIF insertion, floating and split keyboards for bigger displays, one-handed options, and so much more. It’s not the most full-featured keyboard option out there, but it has just about everything most folks use.
But the thing about Gboard that’s really good is that it just makes sense. For lack of a better description, it just works.
On Gboard, Google’s autocorrect is strong, but not forceful. If you notice that a word is corrected and disagree, you can simply hit the backspace button to revert the correction. You don’t have to delete the whole word, nor do you have to re-type it. It’s just quick and easy.
Meanwhile, voice-to-text on the Pixel is second to none in my eyes. It recognizes text quickly and accurately and is very good at inputting punctuation. Compared to everything else I’ve used, Gboard on the Pixel in particular is just the best at voice input.
Put that in contrast to the default keyboard experience on Apple’s iPhone and Samsung Galaxy devices, both of which are, currently, maddening.
Earlier this year, I dove into the state of Samsung Keyboard, which is objectively just terrible.
Autocorrect barely works, the keyboard’s features tend to be a little buried, and the voice-to-text is downright awful. Luckily, switching to Gboard on a Samsung smartphone fixes most of this and brings the experience mostly up to par with a Pixel. The only thing lacking is voice-to-text, but it’s still far better with Gboard than it is with Samsung Keyboard.
Then, there’s the iPhone.
Apple’s default keyboard is, I think, a very good typing experience. The keyboard is very good at two-finger and swipe input. The voice-to-text also isn’t bad, though I don’t think it’s nearly as good as on Pixel. But Apple’s keyboard is majorly lacking on features. I can’t believe there’s no GIF input, for example.
The main problem, though, is autocorrect.
Autocorrect on the iPhone, at least in iOS 17, is incredibly overaggressive. Typing a name or a word that’s not commonly used will often result in the keyboard “correcting” the spelling. This happens repeatedly even if you go back to fix it. The keyboard never learns, and constantly enforces what it thinks is correct. Worse yet, autocorrect will apply in situations where you don’t expect it to. If autocorrect believes the last word in a sentence needs to be corrected, it will do so as you hit send. So even if you scan the message and know everything is correct, the keyboard might change that as the message goes out the door.
In short, autocorrect on the iPhone acts as though you can never possibly know better than it. It’s an infuriating way to use a smartphone.
My preference of how the keyboard works on Pixel is probably at least in part due to the amount of time I spent on Pixels. But I do truly believe it’s the best overall experience. The iPhone’s keyboard and voice-to-text, I’ve repeatedly been told, gets better as you use it. And I’m sure it does. But it doesn’t change the lacking features and the aggressive autocorrect. And Samsung Keyboard, in its current state, is irredeemable in my mind.
It’s hard to understand why this core experience of using a smartphone varies so wildly between devices, and why Google Pixel has such a far lead here. Will others ever catch up? I certainly hope so!
What do you think? What keyboard do you use? Let’s discuss in the comments below!
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