5 ms·

For the few months that I had to use an iPhone in addition to my regular Android phone, I also tried to convince myself that some things were better and some th

For the few months that I had to use an iPhone in addition to my regular Android phone, I also tried to convince myself that some things were better and some things were worse. But the iOS keyboard was completely unusable for me as a power user, and it cannot be replaced. I was missing so many features of Gboard. I absolutely could not consider an iPhone or any other replacement phone for that matter, if it does not support Gboard.

sanswork 1y ago
You can install gboard on iPhones, I've been using it for several years on one.
- jahnu 1y ago
  Interesting that it hasn’t been updated in three years.
  - sanswork 1y ago
    It's pretty terrible but it's still the best of what I've tried. Given the progress in LLMs the autocomplete/autocorrect choices and word suggestions are laughably bad. Swype and the MS one though still managed to be worse
- whycome 1y ago
  It's crippled though. You can't do something simple like have the comma on main view.
  - sanswork 1y ago
    Is that an iPhone restriction or is that Google not maintaining a product?
    - whycome 1y ago
      Pretty sure it's limited due to iOS. Because it does allow period to be added.
      - sanswork 1y ago
        Just checked with the iOS keyboard development guide and app store review and see no rules against it. Why are you pretty sure it is limited due to the OS?
        whycome 1y ago
        Because the exact same feature is available on the Android version. No other ios keyboard has it. And the default ios keyboard doesn't have it. I'm not sure of another reason.
whycome 1y ago
iOS must have changed some things related to keyboards. On an iPhone many years ago it was definitely a better experience. I’m not sure if some sort of predictive text gets in the way or what. Or maybe something with the spacing. Or it also seems like some sort of thread priority issue because there are times where I can distinctly tell that there’s some sort of input lag that’s messing with it. Gboard is crippled on iOS — why can’t we just have a damn comma on the main screen?! And why can't I just get my keyboard to be at the very bottom of my screen. It's 2025 and we have gone so far backward.
- dingnuts 1y ago
  today I was texting and Google Messages began to lag. Why DOES everything seem to get worse? I can hear the Doctorow fans coming out of the woodwork to tell me it's "enshittification" but that's a cute conspiracy theory that doesn't explain at all why Google would allow Messages to have a memory leak after working fine for years. There's no profit motive to making a core application shittier. We have to dig deeper, because this kind of thing is everywhere and hand waving at capitalism like Doctorow does is a cop out and an unsatisfying explanation IMHO
  - 2muchcoffeeman 1y ago
    Why do you need to dig deeper? If you were the PM would you prioritise the fixing of the bug instead of other work that’s more important? How many customers will you actually lose?
  - murderfs 1y ago
    Because random performance bugs are a giant pain to even detect, let alone root cause.
  - moi2388 1y ago
    Because of agile and ci/cd practices. Meaning you ship features to production with at best a/b testing. Never mind writing tests. Of course written by some cheap devs from India or Bangladesh. If the code was even still written by a human at this point.
- 1y ago
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
JustExAWS 1y ago
You’ve been able to replace the iOS keyboard for almost a decade - including with Google’s https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gboard-the-google-keyboard/id1091700242 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gboard-the-google-keyboard/id1...
LexiMax 1y ago
> But the iOS keyboard was completely unusable for me as a power user, and it cannot be replaced. If you're still on Android, try FUTO keyboard. I found the voice-to-text feature to actually be on par with Google's, but without the delay of a phone-home.

sanswork 1y ago

You can install gboard on iPhones, I've been using it for several years on one.

jahnu 1y ago
Interesting that it hasn’t been updated in three years.
- sanswork 1y ago
  It's pretty terrible but it's still the best of what I've tried. Given the progress in LLMs the autocomplete/autocorrect choices and word suggestions are laughably bad. Swype and the MS one though still managed to be worse
whycome 1y ago
It's crippled though. You can't do something simple like have the comma on main view.
- sanswork 1y ago
  Is that an iPhone restriction or is that Google not maintaining a product?
  - whycome 1y ago
    Pretty sure it's limited due to iOS. Because it does allow period to be added.
    - sanswork 1y ago
      Just checked with the iOS keyboard development guide and app store review and see no rules against it. Why are you pretty sure it is limited due to the OS?
      - whycome 1y ago
        Because the exact same feature is available on the Android version. No other ios keyboard has it. And the default ios keyboard doesn't have it. I'm not sure of another reason.

whycome 1y ago

iOS must have changed some things related to keyboards. On an iPhone many years ago it was definitely a better experience. I’m not sure if some sort of predictive text gets in the way or what. Or maybe something with the spacing. Or it also seems like some sort of thread priority issue because there are times where I can distinctly tell that there’s some sort of input lag that’s messing with it. Gboard is crippled on iOS — why can’t we just have a damn comma on the main screen?! And why can't I just get my keyboard to be at the very bottom of my screen. It's 2025 and we have gone so far backward.

dingnuts 1y ago
today I was texting and Google Messages began to lag. Why DOES everything seem to get worse? I can hear the Doctorow fans coming out of the woodwork to tell me it's "enshittification" but that's a cute conspiracy theory that doesn't explain at all why Google would allow Messages to have a memory leak after working fine for years. There's no profit motive to making a core application shittier. We have to dig deeper, because this kind of thing is everywhere and hand waving at capitalism like Doctorow does is a cop out and an unsatisfying explanation IMHO
- 2muchcoffeeman 1y ago
  Why do you need to dig deeper? If you were the PM would you prioritise the fixing of the bug instead of other work that’s more important? How many customers will you actually lose?
- murderfs 1y ago
  Because random performance bugs are a giant pain to even detect, let alone root cause.
- moi2388 1y ago
  Because of agile and ci/cd practices. Meaning you ship features to production with at best a/b testing. Never mind writing tests. Of course written by some cheap devs from India or Bangladesh. If the code was even still written by a human at this point.
1y ago

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

JustExAWS 1y ago

You’ve been able to replace the iOS keyboard for almost a decade - including with Google’s https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gboard-the-google-keyboard/id1091700242 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gboard-the-google-keyboard/id1...

LexiMax 1y ago

> But the iOS keyboard was completely unusable for me as a power user, and it cannot be replaced. If you're still on Android, try FUTO keyboard. I found the voice-to-text feature to actually be on par with Google's, but without the delay of a phone-home.