Gboard v7.0 Beta Adds Email Address Autocompletion, Universal Media Search, & Support for Chinese and Korean Languages

Gboard, formerly Google Keyboard, is Google's first-party keyboard app for Android. It's a feature-rich app, and it is pre-installed on a wide range of Android smartphones. The last version of Gboard, v6.9, brought support for handwriting input, URL field suggestions, new languages, and more. Gboard v7.0 beta began rolling-out to users on the Play Store today, and the official change-log states that it now supports Android Oreo (Go Edition). It also comes with more support for Japanese language features.

We installed the app and did an APK teardown of it as well. The teardown enabled us to know about other new features which have gone live in the latest update, even though they weren't mentioned in the official changelog. To be precise, auto-completion for email addresses has now gone live; users can now choose to do a universal search for media; and Chinese and Korean are now supported languages. One feature which hasn't gone live yet is suggestions and auto-corrections for automatically detected additional languages.

An APK teardown can often predict features that may arrive in a future update of an application, but it is possible that any of the features we mention here may not make it in a future release. This is because these features are currently unimplemented in the live build and may be pulled at any time by Google in a future build.

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Email address autocompletion

Gboard's auto-correct and auto-complete features are already among the best, but now, Google has improved them even more. The keyboard will now autocomplete typed email addresses (as this feature has gone live), although it's worth noting that I could not get the feature to work myself even after trying multiple times. When it starts working for all, it will save users the hassle of manually typing email addresses. Here is the string for the same:

  <string name="feature_card_email_completion_description">Gboard now auto-completes email addresses so you no longer need to fully type them out.</string>  

Support for Chinese and Korean languages

Since its launch, Gboard has gained support for a wide range of languages, which makes it a boon to multi-lingual users. Up until now, though, it did not support Chinese and Korean. That changes now, as users can download the beta update and add Chinese and Korean language keyboards to Gboard. The app will also now alert users that new languages are available. Here are the strings for the same:

  <string name="feature_card_chinese_korean_description">Chinese and Korean are now supported in Gboard.</string>  <string name="feature_card_chinese_korean_title">New languages!</string>  

Universal media search

This feature is self-explanatory, and it's now gone live. Users can do a universal media search to search for emojis, GIFs, and stickers. Here are the strings for the same:

  <string name="feature_card_universal_media_description">Now when you search for "hungry" on Gboard, you'll not only get emojis - you'll also be able to choose from stickers and gifs, too.</string>  <string name="gboard_showing_universal_media_content_desc">Showing %s Media</string>  <string name="gboard_showing_universal_media_no_context_content_desc">Showing Media</string>  <string name="universal_media_emoji_header_text">EMOJI</string>  <string name="universal_media_gifs_header_text">GIFS</string>  <string name="universal_media_plural_suffix">" gifs"</string>  <string name="universal_media_singular_suffix">" gif"</string>  <string name="universal_media_sticker_header_text">STICKERS</string>  <string name="universal_media_sticker_more_results">MORE</string>  <string name="universal_media_sticker_more_results_content_desc">Open more sticker results</string>  

Describing bug reports

  <string name="bug_report_dialog_bug_description_comment_message">"Please describe the bug in detail (Used as bug's description)."</string>  <string name="bug_report_dialog_bug_description_title_message">"Please describe the bug in one sentence (Used as bug's title)."</string>  <string name="bug_report_dialog_report_to_buganizer_option_message">Do you want to report this on Buganizer? (Unselecting this option will still upload log to server.)</string>  <string name="bug_report_dialog_span_selection_message">Please unselect any text that you do not want to share with Google.</string>  <string name="dialog_title">Keyboard Decoder Bug Report</string>  <string name="label_quality_bug_report_access_point">Quality Bug Report</string>  

These strings add to existing strings that are related to bug reporting. Users are able to describe the bug in detail, which will be used as the bug's description, and in one sentence, which will be used as the bug's title. They can also choose to report this on Buganizer (Google's Issue Tracker), but even if they unselect that option, the generated logs will still be uploaded to servers.

Suggestions and autocorrections in automatically detected additional languages

  <string name="enable_new_language_dialog_message">"You'll start seeing suggestions and autocorrections for %1$s words."</string>  <string name="enable_new_language_dialog_title">Add %1$s to Gboard?</string>  

This feature hasn't gone live yet. When it does, Gboard will automatically detect additional languages, and offer to add them to its selected languages. Users will then start seeing suggestions and autocorrections in the selected languages.

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