I switched to an iPhone only to realize that Gboard runs terribly on Android
Android Police 2026-07-09 16:15:10
Context: The author, Rahul Naskar, a tech journalist with eight years of experience covering Android, recently switched to an iPhone for a month and discovered that Google's Gboard keyboard app runs poorly on Android compared to Apple's keyboard. He uses multiple smartphones, including two Android devices and an iPhone, and found the typing experience on Gboard to be less polished and responsive. This experience led him to compare the features and performance of Gboard on Android with Apple's keyboard on iOS.
Key Facts
- The author uses three smartphones, two of which run Android, and the other is an iPhone 16e, which he likes the least due to its limitations, especially in software.
- The Gboard keyboard app on Android lacks support for a virtual trackpad, whereas Apple's keyboard on iOS allows users to move the cursor in all four directions by long-pressing the space button.
- The author found that the cursor movement in Gboard on Android feels sluggish and is not in sync with finger movements, unlike Apple's virtual trackpad, which moves the cursor exactly where desired on the first attempt.
- Gboard on Android limits cursor movement to only left and right, whereas Apple's keyboard on iOS allows movement up and down to jump between paragraphs, as well as left and right to move along lines.
- The iOS keyboard features shortcuts to switch between languages, allowing the author to quickly switch between English, Bengali, and Hindi with a tap, whereas Gboard requires long-pressing the space bar to select a different keyboard.