Grammarly Keyboard for Android hits the Play Store

Grammarly, the text and grammar correction tool that makes people everywhere look a little more competent, has just released a new Android keyboard. This comes after highly successful browser plug-ins and a recently launched iOS keyboard. 

Grammarly is a service that checks your typing as you go to lets you know about typs typos and grammatical errors. It existed as a just browser plug-in for a while, but now it is branching out into the mobile world. Now that we can do pretty much anything on our smartphones, it makes sense for Grammarly to launch a keyboard app.

See also: The best Android keyboards

The keyboard is certainly interesting. We’re not going to get into full-on review territory here, but we do have some thoughts. First, the app is launching without swipe typing. Now, I know those of you who tap type won’t care about this, but it’s a huge deal for those of us that have been swipe typing for years. In fact, it was a deal breaker for me. 

Grammarly is a cloud-based service and therefore needs an active internet connection to fully function. If you’re without one, you still get typo correction like with any other keyboard, but you miss out on the advanced grammar suggestions that Grammarly provides. Also, the app doesn’t recognize its name. That’s a strange oversight.

If none of those things bother you, you’ll love Grammarly. I love that it syncs your personal dictionary across devices. Any word that you’ve added to your dictionary on a computer will show up on your phone too. This is a fantastic feature that few apps can replicate. 

Additionally, the grammar suggestions usually work out pretty well. I am by no means the best writer around, so it’s nice to have that extra layer between me and whoever I’m sending a message to. The corrections show up a little slow and stick around in the suggestion box until you clear them, but those are minor inconveniences compared to the return you get.

Naturally, the topic of security comes up when we’re talking about third-party keyboards. By nature, a service like this needs to track your typing to function. Grammarly makes no bones about that and says that it’s providing encryption to make sure no one else has access. It also doesn’t record any information you enter into sensitive text boxes like passwords and credit card information. 

If you’d like to try it out, hit the button below to download it now. You can use it to type in American or British English only at this point, and it feels pretty bare compared to other keyboards, but it’s not terrible for a first release.