2014-11-14

Thank you Google!

This is my third "Thank you Google!" article. In the first two articles I've thanked Google for fixing the Droid and then the Roboto font families.

This time I'm thanking Google for adding a dictionary for the Romanian keyboard in Android thus enabling gesture typing. I remember seeing gesture typing fist on the Swype keyboard.

I've noticed this feature on my Nexus 5 with the arrival of Android 4.4.4 update.

Last week I've updated my HP TouchPad to Android 4.4 (CyanogenMod 11) and took a screen shot of "Google Keyboard". I've pointed out the elephant in the picture.


Gesture typing makes typing correct Romanian fast and enjoyable! Note that the keyboard has some quirks, which I've reported here: #35339.

Here is a recording of me gesture typing the Romanian Pangram:


Microsoft has added to Windows Phone 8.1 gesture typing and the call it shape writing or Word Flow. As it turns out, Word Flow is supported only for the following languages:
Arabic, Dutch, English (UK and US), Finnish, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish (Mexico and Spain), Turkish, Ukrainian.
It seems Windows Phone keyboard needs more than a dictionary (it does come with a Romanian dictionary) to enable gesture typing. I've made a suggestion to Microsoft to add WordFlow support to Romanian language in Windows Phone. Vote if you want it :)

Hats off to Google! Shame on you Microsoft!

P.S. Recently I've learned that Google Keyboard is not available everywhere. For example you will not find Google Keyboard on Play Store in Germany and if you search it in the browser and then open the link you will get this nice image (Tested on a Moto X bought in Germany):


It's not only music and videos that Google blocks in Germany, it's also apps!