Gboard For Android Hits 10 Billion Downloads On Play Store

Gboard for Android is the latest Google app to hit 10 billion downloads on the Play Store. The listing says the app was released on June 5, 2013.

In December 2016, “Gboard” replaced the Google Keyboard on Android, with web Search being the main addition. (Gboard was first introduced that May for iOS.) In 2020, that lookup capability was removed entirely.

Today, the app features offline voice typing on all devices, Google Translate, Scan Text OCR tool, and clipboard. You can customize the keyboard background with various themes, resize the height, one-handed, and floating modes. Expressive features include emoji, GIF, and sticker search, as well as Emoji Kitchen to make mashups.

Pixel devices benefit from Assistant voice typing that keeps speech-to-text as you use the keyboard, Proofread, and Pixel Screenshots integration.

In addition to phones and tablets, Gboard is available on Wear OS and Android/Google TV. (There’s a separate Google Automotive Keyboard for cars.)

The last big Gboard update that’s available for all (stable) users was earlier this month when the Dynamic Theme was simplified to two colors. Meanwhile, Google is actively beta testing an Assistant voice typing toolbar on phones, Undo and Redo buttons, and ability to Browse Emoji Kitchen combos. Most rollouts take a long time to enter stable.

In hitting the milestone today, Gboard joins other first-party apps like YouTube, Play Services, Google Maps, Gmail, and Google Photos that have over 10 billion downloads.