According to a report from The Verge, Google is building its own third-party keyboard for iOS and has been doing so for “months”. So, why is Google making an iOS keyboard again?
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According to the report, the new keyboard has been tested by various Google employees and was created as a new way to funnel more searches to Google on iOS devices. Given that Google has released multiple apps for iOS devices in the past, like its suite of productivity apps, Google Drive, Photos, Maps, and etc., we suppose releasing a keyboard for iOS isn’t really that much of a stretch.
Given that it reportedly has Google’s web and image (including GIFs) searching abilities baked-in, the goal, it seems, is to give iOS users a way to perform quick on-the-fly searches while they are using other apps. It’s also not the only search-centric mobile app Google is rumored to be working on. And everyone knows that more Google searches means more Google ads, so the strategy here is pretty straightforward.
It’s not now known when – if at all – Google will release this keyboard. The prominent features of Google keyboard for iOS would be gesture-based typing which allows to slide finger from one letter to the next. Whether or not Google is able to sway users remains to be seen.
Support for third-party keyboards was introduced by Apple in iOS 8, which prompted the arrival of several offerings from Android developers such as Swype and Swiftkey, not to mention the fact that even Microsoft is porting its “Word Flow” keyboard to iOS.
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Google is increasingly focusing on mobile and looking at ways to become as big a player on the platform as it is on desktop, less than a year ago it made a significant update to its algorithm to crack-down on websites that weren’t mobile-ready.
