Despite autocorrect – and sometimes because of it – I make more mistakes when typing on my smartphone than on any other device. Consequently, I spend a lot of time either deleting tweets or trying to move the cursor back to correct a typo.
Until recently, this was a massive pain in the posterior. Then I (belatedly) discovered one of the greatest features I’ve ever seen on an Android keyboard – and it’s on Google’s own Gboard.
(Update: Dan Skinner points out that Gboard is also available for iOS and has the same killer feature mentioned below.)
What problem does Gboard solve?
Let’s say you’re rattling out a tweet like this and you suddenly discover you’ve made a typo midway through:
I’d normally spend the next 30 seconds either trying to donk the screen in between the two O’s in ‘woords’, so that I can delete the unwanted extra, or – because hitting the precise spot is near impossible – deleting the tweet back to the typo and starting again.
And then I discovered a well-hidden feature that has already saved me tons of time. You can swipe the keyboard’s spacebar left and right to move the cursor!
This lets you move the cursor along a character at a time, a bit like the arrow keys on a proper keyboard, allowing you to correct typos, extra spaces or other mistakes far more quickly.
I’ve not seen this feature in any other keyboard, although let me know if you have in Comments below and I’ll update this article.
Gboard was already my favourite Android keyboard. This feature cements the deal.
Now read this: more reasons why Gboard is the best Android keyboard
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