Gboard Beta APK Teardown Tips Arrival of Smart Reply Across Apps, and More

Google's Gboard mobile keyboard app has got a new beta update, v6.9, and an APK teardown of the app indicates that the Smart Reply feature first popularised in Inbox by Gmail will be rolling out to the keyboard soon. Smart Reply can also be seen in Google Allo and Gmail. The feature will supposedly offer suggestions for notifications from select Android apps. A new Universal Media Keyboard is also in the works, apart from details about functionality of the upcoming "Make a GIF" feature on Android.

9to5Google carried out an APK teardown of the v6.9 beta of the Gboard app. In the teardown, the publication claims there is evidence that Smart Reply intelligent suggestions are coming to the Gboard app. Code extracted from the teardown indicates Smart Reply will be available for incoming notifications, wherein the keyboard will offer phrase-length suggestions in the row above the keyboard. The feature will reportedly work only within Allo, Android Messages, Hangouts, Facebook, Messenger Lite, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Tencent. It also works on Snapchat, albeit with limited functionality. To make the feature work, users will need to give Gboard 'Notification access' in system settings.

Another highlight of the APK teardown was a new "Make a GIF" feature that is expected to arrive on the Gboard Android app. The v6.9 beta details the functionality of this feature, which lets users create custom GIF stickers using the Gboard keyboard. "Make a GIF" is currently available on the Gboard iOS app.

And, finally, the teardown also suggests that a universal media keyboard is in development. With an option to "Search all media", this keyboard will offer possible universal search features across things like news, articles and so on.

9To5Google notes that these features are not confirmed by Google, and the stable build might not ship with the exact same functionality as in the APK teardown.