Summary
- Gboard has surpassed 10 billion downloads on the Google Play Store, demonstrating its widespread adoption as a primary keyboard app on Android devices.
- A recent update to Gboard version 14.9 introduced a subtle UI change to the shortcuts button, getting rid of its circular container.
- The change aims to create a more uniform look with the other toolbar icons, but it also reduces the distinctiveness of the shortcuts icon, potentially affecting quick recognition.
Google’s keyboard app, Gboard, is as ubiquitous as they come. On some Android devices, Gboard comes pre-installed as the default keyboard app, while for others, using it is as simple as downloading it from the Play Store and setting it as your default keyboard app.
Gboard now has more downloads than there are people on earth, having surpassed the 10 billion download mark just recently — and that too, without taking the app’s Apple’s App Store downloads into account.
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Gboard now has more downloads than there are people on earth
Google’s keyboard joins the 10 billion download club
Considering the digital keyboard’s huge userbase, even the smallest changes don’t go unnoticed, and that’s exactly the case with the app’s recent minor tweak. If you like symmetry, and at least some sort of visual consistency, you likely won’t be too happy with this change.
The tweak comes in the form of a UI change to the keyboard’s shortcuts button, as seen in the screenshot below.
Before and after
Source: 9to5Google
For reference, Gboard allows you to add five different shortcuts to its top-aligned toolbar, including shortcuts for Emoji, Clipboard, GIF, Translate, Theme, Settings, and more. The voice dictate tool stays put on the right, while the icon that lets you expand the shortcuts tool grid holds its position on the left. The former is housed in a circular container to depict its default position, and up until recently, the same was the case with the left-aligned shortcuts icon.
As highlighted by 9to5Google, this changed with the latest stable release. I have the new UI without the circular Material You color-matched container with Gboard version 14.9. There’s not much else here, apart from the fact that the icon itself is now filled-in, in contrast to its previously hollow appearance.
The filled-in look aligns better with the icons on the right, creating a uniform look for the toolbar itself. However, the shortcuts icon itself loses some of its distinctiveness.
