AW Poll: Gboard beats Swiftkey in race for ‘best keyboard’
Keyboards on Android have evolved little in recent years: Androidworld last conducted a poll on your favorite keyboard in 2015. Swiftkey then emerged as the ‘best keyboard’. Which players will be in the top 3 this year? You read it in the AW Poll result.
(Too) many keyboards
Android has a huge selection of keyboard apps: some applications have been around for years, such as the well-known Swiftkey – which is now owned by Microsoft. At the same time, there are also plenty of applications that are currently being built from the ground up – such keyboards have to compete with the established order. We recently covered the popular OpenBoard in privacy-conscious circles: a new keyboard that differentiates itself by publishing all source code publicly.
Another well-known keyboard developer is Chrooma: that keyboard allows its color to be adjusted based on the colors of your apps. In WhatsApp, the Chrooma keyboard can take on a green tone, while in the Androidworld app it would turn blue. In appearance, Chrooma is close to the Gboard available since December 2016: the official Google keyboard. In fact, if you buy a new phone, chances are that Gboard will come pre-installed.
At least, that applies to OnePlus, Sony, Nokia and Motorola devices, among others. Samsung still relies on its own keyboard, and Huawei relies on the Swiftkey keyboard for its phones. For both the keyboards of Google, Samsung and Microsoft (Swiftkey), they have started to offer more and more functions in recent years that you do not necessarily expect for such keyboards, such as being able to drag the keyboard over your screen, or looking up GIFs.
AW Poll: Favorite Keyboard
After Swiftkey emerged as the winner in our AW Poll in 2015, it is time once again to question this win. Is Swiftkey still that popular, or will there be another winner this time? The AW Poll was published recently and this time the results will follow. The profit goes to Gboard, which, with 49 percent of the vote, maintains a significant lead over the second favorite: Swiftkey. With 38 percent of the votes, it remains a popular keyboard, but it is clear that Gboard has managed to win over just a little more people.
In third place is actually not a keyboard, but a collection of keyboards that come from the factory on Android phones. Keyboards like Chrooma and the privacy-conscious OpenBoard both managed about 1 percent of the votes within the drag.
Given the speed at which Google continues to add new features to Gboard, chances are it can hold onto the top spot for now. Already using Gboard? If so, what is your main reason for using Gboard? Let us know in the comments below the article.
