Google Keyboard 3.0 released, adds personalized suggestions

The new Google Android keyboard has SwiftKey-like abilities.

Google has updated its Android keyboard to add SwiftKey like abilities. The keyboard app will now keep track of your typing habits and offer personalized suggestions accordingly. The feature has been set on by default, but users can change it in settings.

The info is kept on the device itself though. So if you keep switching between a tablet and smartphone, or other Android devices, the learning curve will be much longer. The app monitors your usage across apps, so you are not limited to messaging apps but across Google apps and services, such as Search, Gmail, and YouTube.

Google notifies the user when he/she uses the keyboard for the first time and also lets them know then how to switch it up. Users can also unselect 'Personalized suggestions' from the keyboard tracking app through “Google Keyboard Settings”.

Google has also announced a new update to its Google Search app for Android that enables users to launch either the camera with just a voice command. Users can tap the microphone on their Android device and simply say "Ok Google" followed by either "take a photo" or "take a video" to launch the camera app in the specified mode.

This new update also includes an "ABC" key that lets users jump back to the keyboard from the emjoi list as well as a new Settings icon that will pop up after long-pressing the microphone. The new update for Google search app as well as Google Keyboard app can be downloaded from the Google Play store.