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android app keyboard recommendations

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IainB:
Ultimately, which keyboard seems "most suitable" for a user will depend on the user's peculiar  requirements - which, from experience, are usually little understood and rarely defined.
There have been a few references in the DC Forum discussions to the Microsoft product  SwiftKey (MS apparently bought up the company several years ago.)
I only recently started using a smartphone for my own purposes (though I have set up smartphones for other people to use for at least a couple of years), as there is some functionality available that can't so easily be utilised via a laptop, though I do use an Android emulator on the laptop so that I can mirror the Android device's system on the laptop. I plumped for a refurbished Samsung Galaxy S7 with the Google keyboard. Very good. It was a no-brainer.

But it was whilst I was setting up a Japanese and a Thai keyboard for a couple of users that I started to research and experiment in earnest with other keyboard apps than the obvious ones mentioned in this thread (above) and which are otherwise very good.
That's when I stumbled upon SwiftKey. I was initially very skeptical (because it was a Microsoft product, after all!), but, on reading user reviews, I couldn't find a single real criticism - it was mostly all positives. So, rather than get the other users to be guinea-pigs and experiment with this unknown app, I tested it out pretty thoroughly on my own smartphone first.
Because I tend to be rather critical and see all the warts in things, I have rarely been blown away by any application's functionality and potential - sadlement, they are nearly all defective in some regard.
Not so SwiftKey, it seems. After trialling it, I subsequently installed it for the other users, and they too were blown away by it. The hardest part was getting them to actually try it out in the first place ("suck-it-and-see"). The built-in ergonomics and predictive and lots of other functionality in SwiftKey seem to leave most of the other keyboards standing in the dust.
Well worth a try, I'd suggest.

tomos:
^I just typed an in depth comparison of Swiftkey and Gboard and it got deleted by this ddos protection system :-/ :down: :( >:(

Summary

I missed Swiftkey after moving from a Windows to an Android phone. The autocorrect is much better imo (it *is* weaker in some areas, e.g. if I accidentally ty pe a space in a word).

I cant yet figure out how to easily change (already chosen) language keyboards in it. This is very intuitive and clear in Gboard (long press on spacebar). Autocorrect in both seem to be able to cope well with changing languages on the fly, even within a sentence (I often end up typing Denglish, a mix of German and English).

Google/Android is pretty obnoxious about me choosing another keyboard:
warns  "This input method may be able to collect the text I type, including [..]". Which makes me wonder if google are already doing that :-/
They add an icon to the bottom bar to enable a quick return to Gboard -- it clutters and doesn't look good EDIT// actually only allows switch to Google voice board

IainB:
^I just typed an in depth comparison of Swiftkey and Gboard and it got deleted by this ddos protection system :-/   
-tomos (January 18, 2019, 02:52 PM)
--- End quote ---
Yes, I know, that can be so annoying.   :mad:
Workaround: Save everything repeatedly with CHS, so that you don't have to re-create the disappeared text.

KynloStephen66515:
I cant yet figure out how to easily change (already chosen) language keyboards in it. This is very intuitive and clear in Gboard (long press on spacebar). Autocorrect in both seem to be able to cope well with changing languages on the fly, even within a sentence (I often end up typing Denglish, a mix of German and English).
-tomos (January 18, 2019, 02:52 PM)
--- End quote ---

I love the multilingual option within GBoard, even if it does mean I send random italian words in the middle of english sentences, when I'm paying no attention lol.

IainB:
I cant yet figure out how to easily change (already chosen) language keyboards in it.
-tomos (January 18, 2019, 02:52 PM)
--- End quote ---
Try swiping the space bar sideways...

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