More than the population of the Earth This application from Google exceeds 10 billion downloads and it is important
Gboard is one of the most successful and widely adopted Google apps on the market today. The folks at Google have always tried to deliver tools that change the way we interact with our devices, and they’ve been working on improving their default keyboard for years. With this latest milestone, it seems like things are going better than many expected.
According to 9to5Google, Gboard has surpassed ten billion downloads on the Google Play Store, a feat that very few apps can boast of. The app was originally launched on June 5, 2013 as Google Keyboard and only adopted its current name in December 2016, after first appearing on iOS a few months earlier.
Pixel users enjoy additional features like voice-assisted typing and Proofread, which corrects grammar errors using AI. Google has been able to leverage all the work it has done in AI to offer exclusive features and stay afloat in a market saturated with alternatives.
However, not everything is fine for Google. Competition in the virtual keyboard market is fierce, with alternatives like SwiftKey (from Microsoft) or Fleksy gaining new users. Moreover, the continuous improvements based on artificial intelligence raise questions about the privacy of what we type, although when it comes to the giant Google, it doesn’t matter what it says in passing: this data is sure to end up in someone’s pocket to place personalized ads on us.
With this milestone, Gboard joins the club of select apps that have surpassed 10 billion downloads, alongside YouTube, Play Services, Google Maps, Gmail, and Google Photos. It remains to be seen whether the keyboard will continue to dominate the market or whether any competitors will be able to overtake it in the coming years.
- Gboard app