Android 16’s Help For Exterior Keyboards Blew My Ideas

It’s been years since I last tried to pair a Bluetooth or USB keyboard with my Android phone. After being a bodily QWERTY proponent for years and hating on touchscreen typing, I wholly nevertheless slowly embraced pecking on a glass ground. There have been just some events I wanted I had a keyboard for my Android tablets, but it surely certainly wasn’t frequent enough to make me pay for one.

That changed just some weeks up to now after I started testing the Clicks Keyboard with my Pixel 9 Skilled, which is working Android 16‘s latest QPR3 beta. I’d seen my colleague Mishaal Rahman cowl Google’s work on keyboard help for years, nevertheless I honestly didn’t depend on it to be this good. So proper right here’s my rundown of all of the excellent points I get pleasure from about using an exterior keyboard with Android 16.

After I plug the Clicks Keyboard into my Pixel 9 Skilled and tap a textual content material self-discipline, a small floating button instantly appears on the present with the presently chosen language. Throughout the image above, you might even see the floating “US” throughout the middle left of the show display screen, nevertheless the screenshots underneath current it additional clearly.

That floating toolbar was added to Gboard just a few Android variations up to now, but it surely certainly stays a highlight attribute as we communicate. As an alternative of CTRL + Home’ing by way of languages and hoping you land on the one you have to use, chances are you’ll select the exact one you want. It brings lots better than language selection, too.

There are menus to level out Gboard’s most useful choices, so that I don’t miss out on these perks by opting to utilize a bodily keyboard. Emojis, GIFs, clipboard historic previous, quick translations, voice typing; they’re all there with a reminder of the shortcut that triggers them.

Larger however, I can change that floating button to a sticky full-width bottom toolbar that offers autocorrect concepts, the following predicted phrases, and a voice enter key. This moreover makes it sooner to utilize Gboard’s superb concepts for pasting points I merely copied, using autofill from 1Password (or one other password supervisor), or together with an automatically-detected 2FA code I merely acquired by means of textual content material. I’m so glad I don’t must determine on between using Gboard or plugging an exterior keyboard to get all of these choices. I get the perfect of every worlds.

There are additional time-saving keyboard shortcuts than I can take into accout

Using a bodily keyboard with an Android phone or tablet, whether or not or not it’s by means of Bluetooth or USB, is an practice in frustration and steep finding out curves. Android is constructed to be a finger-navigated interface with swipes, gestures, and on-screen buttons to faucet. I didn’t discover how sometimes I need to achieve out to the show display screen to do one factor that had no corresponding key on my keyboard sooner than I started using one.

Nonetheless Android 14 launched an expanded itemizing of keyboard shortcuts with many system-level actions accessible by means of a mixture of keys. As an alternative of fixing my grip to press the power and amount button and take a screenshot, I can sort Search + S. Search + N drops down the notifications, Search + H goes to the home show display screen, Search + Tab opens the newest apps itemizing, and naturally, I can on a regular basis Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V to repeat and paste.

There are over 20 system-level shortcuts, 4 accessibility shortcuts, and 9 Gboard shortcuts, all browsable in a quick itemizing from the toolbar or by typing Search + /.  A few extra hidden shortcuts are moreover there, like tapping the home bar to scroll down by way of any app, which may be very helpful when finding out an article in Chrome.

I actually like that I can open the app itemizing from any app, it doesn’t matter what I’m doing, with the Search button. I can quickly resize dwelling home windows in split-screen with Search + Ctrl + Correct or Left. I moreover admire that Google has allowed quite a few of its most important apps to be accessible by means of shortcuts. My most-used ones are the subsequent 5, and the reality that I can open them from any app with out having to maneuver by the home show display screen or app launcher is a big time-saver.

• Search + C = Google Calendar
• Search + B = Chrome
• Search + E = Gmail
• Search + M = Google Maps
• Search + Y = YouTube

The entire shortcut menu is searchable, was made additional tablet-friendly with Android 15, and has now transform customizable with Android 16. You’ll be capable to solely choose your custom-made shortcuts on tablets, nevertheless Google says that the efficiency might even come to telephones shortly. I merely need Google would add a built-in efficiency to assign shortcuts to any app we want, not merely its private. I’d prefer to go to WhatsApp, Spotify, Slack, or Asana with my very personal shortcuts.

I didn’t know I needed all these extra selections

Previous all these choices, Android has gone above and previous to make the keyboard experience additional adaptable and accessible. The keyboard you’re using might not have a faithful Caps Lock key or Movement/Search key, nevertheless chances are you’ll assign that throughout the Modifier keys menu beneath Bodily keyboard settings.

Within the occasion you alter the chosen language, chances are you’ll preview what the keyboard format is supposed to be like, merely in case it’s fully completely different out of your bodily keyboard. No person needs to faucet Q and get A, oh ye, AZERTY people…

After which there are the additional obscure choices, like customizing when a long-press on a key causes the letter to be repeatedly entered, and a bunch of accessibility enhancements from Android 15 that shorten the time it takes to register a press or take away the silly requirement to press all shortcut keys on the same time to set off one factor. On a bodily keyboard as small as a result of the Clicks Keyboard that I’m using correct now, that is sensible even within the occasion you don’t have motor factors — it’s merely less complicated to press Search then Ctrl in its place of trying to hit every tiny adjoining keys collectively.

Android moreover has an option to emulate a mouse on a bodily keyboard, letting anyone switch the cursor left, correct, up, down, and in all directions, along with use it to select a self-discipline. This makes additional sense on a full keyboard, though; I tried using it on Clicks, nevertheless the unconventional lack of a amount row made it additional tough.

Every attribute I believed I needed when using a bodily keyboard on my Pixel 9 Skilled is already there in Android 16. And the few that I missed or didn’t work as supposed have been due to the hardly restricted format of the Clicks keyboard and its lack of devoted arrows and a amount row. Totally different bodily keyboards with these will be rather more of a pleasure to utilize.

It baffles me that it’s all progressed lots at a time when using an exterior keyboard with Android isn’t, technically, the preferred issue. Certain, there are only a few Android tablets in the marketplace that present a keyboard attachment, nevertheless they’re not the norm and Google’s private Pixel Tablet doesn’t have one (even when rumors steered it so many events).

That’s proof of Google’s dedication to enhancing your full Android experience on tablets. Handwriting and mouse help have moreover taken leaps ahead, and all of it has made me itch for a full-on mobile computing experience primarily based totally on Android.