Gboard Testing Circle And Pill-Shaped Keys On Android

The aesthetic changes to Gboard for Android continue with Google introducing circle or pill-shaped keys for some beta testers today.

Instead of the key borders being rounded rectangles, Gboard is switching to circles and pills for letters, while the space bar and other keys are now pill-shaped. While there should be no functional change to touch targets, these new shapes really shift the look of Gboard for Android.

On paper, it’s a bit more modern (and rounded) compared to what came before. However, it’s a bit cramped if you have “Long press for symbols” enabled, which goes from the top-right corner to being directly above the letter. The physical analog Gboard is moving away from is how most keys on laptops and desktops are square.

As a reminder, you can disable Key borders from Gboard Settings > Theme > make a selection.

This change is appearing for some Gboard beta (version 15.1) users as of Thursday. It’s not yet widely available for those in that preview program.

It follows Gboard simplifying the Dynamic Color theme to just two shades, and changing the shortcut button in the suggestion strip. However, today’s change is definitely more substantial, and we’ll see if Google widely launches the design.