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Comment by JamesBaxter | Hacker News Reader

It's very odd to me that Google would release this on iOS first. I understand the value of iOS market share but when you have your own platform...

I think this looks really good, doesn't seem to be in the UK App Store yet or I'd have installed it already.

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Android has had these features for a long time. Google published their own keyboard (with glide typing / etc) in June 2013 - https://plus.google.com/+android/posts/caeWaRkUyrE , but glide typing keyboards have existed on Android for many years before that.

The searching existing on-screen context / inserting relevant data is actually MUCH better on Android in the form of Now On Tap, which came out with Android M around this time last year - http://gizmodo.com/google-now-on-tap-hands-on-contextual-awe... . It has the added benefit of looking at what's on your screen to figure out what you want vs the new iOS keyboard where you have to click the G, then type in whatever you were interested in again.

This app is basically just trying to cram as much as they can into the keyboard, since they can't offer an option like Now On Tap on iOS due to Apple restrictions.

It has those features indirectly - if i want to text my wife a picture of a typing dog, i can hit Now On Tap, search for the picture, hit share, hangouts, wife, and insert a picture of a typing dog, but it isn't rolled up in to the keyboard app like the IOS Gboard being shown here. (Unless I'm missing something...)

It's also worth noting that regardless of which keyboard or combination of apps you're using on Android, it's not possible to send an animated GIF as an MMS attachment without dropping so many frames that the clip becomes essentially unwatchable.

If you're sending a Hangouts message (Google account to Google account) it works just fine. Otherwise, even if you roll all your SMS/MMS activity into the Hangouts app, no dice.

But the advantage of not having to switch apps is still missing on Android.

I don't think it's "cramming it in" when that's the main benefit of the system.

Now on Tap is available anywhere in Android (even when you don't have a keyboard / input area displayed) by just holding down the home / circle key. There's no switching of apps required.

NoT doesn't allow you to copy the SERs back into the previous app/keyboard context does it? It seems like at least one app "switch" is still required to share what you just looked up, because it takes you out of the app to present the search results.

I just opened Hangouts and pressed and held my Home button for NoT.

After a few seconds of analyzing the screenshot it finally came back with a "no results found" screen with a Google Search field at the top.

I typed in "dancing cat gif".

Switched to the Google Now app for results.

Tapped Images to get image results.

Found the gif I wanted, tapped on the gif.

Gif opened and played. Pressed and held on the gif, nothing happened because Google Now doesn't let you press & hold to save images.

iOS has unique sandboxing restrictions that make third-party keyboards much less useful than they could be on, say, Android.

Much of the creativity comes with figuring out how to circumventing that constraint, or how to flourish within it.

I think that's because it doesn't support UK English now, only US English.

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