If you’re tired of pecking at minuscule letters on virtual keyboards, Google has the app for you.
The company has unveiled a new handwriting keyboard for Android devices that will convert your chicken-scratch into typed-out words. The app, called Google Handwriting Input, can replace your device’s stock keyboard and be used for texting, web browsing and other basic phone features.
A brief hands-on showed that the app was surprisingly good at recognizing a variety of different handwriting styles in English, even if the script was sloppy and the last few letters in a word were bunched at the edge of the screen. Adding punctuation marks is also easy, and you can even recreate many emojis by scribbling them out as old-fashioned emoticons.
The only area where the app seemed to struggle was cursive—print seems to be the way to go for the greatest level of accuracy. The app has earned 4.7 out of 5 stars on the Google Play store, indicating that most users are finding the app highly functional.
Google says the new keyboard supports 82 languages and believes it will be most useful for ideographic languages like Chinese, which are often constrained to a single dialect on traditional keyboards.
The 10 Most Ambitious Google Projects
Google Driverless Car
The Google Self-Driving Car has been in the works since 2005 after a team of engineers won a grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to design an autonomous car. The project, which aims to reduce traffic accidents, has made headway in recent years as states passed laws permitting self-driving cars. Google plans a commercial release between 2017 and 2020.David Paul Morris—Bloomberg/Getty ImagesGoogle has been testing balloons which sail into the stratosphere and beam Internet down to Earth. Jon Shenk—APGoogle's smart contact lenses.Google/APGoogle Lively
Google Lively was a web-based virtual community space where users could design avatars, chat with one another and personalize their online hangout space. The project was discontinued after a six-month stint in 2008 after limited success.Google/APGoogle Earth
Google's virtual map of the Earth allows users to tour the earth with 3-D satellite images. The project, which dates back to 2004, has already found significant applications in disaster relief.Google/APProject Ara
Google's build-your-own-smartphone project allows users to customize their handsets to their own preferences, with the possibility of eliminating electronic waste by encouraging users to add hardware updates on their own terms. The team is working towards a limited market pilot in 2015.Bryan Bedder—Getty Images for Engadget ExpandDisease Detecting Pill
Google unveiled its plans to disease-detecting ingestible pill in October, a project that'll let patients access their real-time health data to encourage preventative care. The pill will contain nanoparticles that can bind to certain cells and chemicals, with the possibility of detecting diseases like cancer in early stages.Getty ImagesFlying Wind Turbines
The flying windmill is the project of Makani Power, a wind turbine developer acquired by Google in 2013. The tethered airborne turbines will harness wind energy for the goal of producing low-cost, renewable energyAndrea Dunlap—Makani Power/APGoogle+
Google's social networking platform launched in 2011, the most successful service after several flops at designing a Facebook competitor, like the now-retired Google Buzz. Today, Google+ boasts over half a billion monthly active users.Stephen Lam—ReutersGoogle Books
Google Books dates back to 2004, when Google partnered with libraries and universities to plan to digitize millions of volumes over the next several years. The project aims to make searching books as easy as searching the web.Getty Images
