On Thursday, Google continued its ongoing release of Nexus products for any Android phone by offering up its keyboard on the Google Play store. Before only available for Google's Nexus lineup, the well-liked Google keyboard is available for free on any Android device that runs Android 4.0 and above.
Unfortunately, not everyone has a device with Android Ice Cream Sandwich or better, so, along with details on Google's keyboard, here's four other keyboard apps you can get that are probably better than the keyboard your Android smartphone came with. But first, more on the Google keyboard.
Google Keyboard
Google's stock keyboard, which comes with Nexus devices, has a lot of easy to use features that make typing on a small screen less of a pain. First, it features "Voice Typing" or dictation, which uses Google's voice recognition algorithms to take the process off the screen almost entirely. It also has gestural typing, which isn't specific only to Google, but can make typing a lot faster once you get used to it. Like other advanced keyboards, it also has extra characters for other languages, next-word prediction, and current-word completion. This should definitely be the first thing you try if you have a non-Nexus device with Android 4.0 or above. Especially because it's free.
SwiftKey
If you don't have at least Android 4.0 and you want to get rid of that bad stock keyboard that came with your non-Nexus phone, your first option to try should probably be SwiftKey. There's a reason why it's the best-selling keyboard on Android: it's simple, spacious, and features great autocorrect, word prediction, and personalization options. There's also a few dozen languages it supports, and "Flow Through Space" gesture typing. The app is $3.99, but you can try it for free for a month.
Smart Keyboard
Along with multi-language support, customizable skins, voice imput, and an adapting dictionary, smart keyboard has something special for those Android users who secretly wished they had an iPhone: it looks like an iPhone keyboard. Looks aside, a lot of people like the key separation that the iPhone keyboard provides, so this may be an option if you're feeling cramped with your stock keyboard and you don't care about swipe-based typing. And if you still feel cramped with the default Smart Keyboard, you can adjust the height of the keys in preferences, making your thumbs' targets even larger. The Smart Keyboard is free for a trial version and $2.64 to buy. It works with Android 1.5 and up, so you should have a compatible device.
Thumb Keyboard
If you're "all thumbs" when it comes to typing into your device, consider the Thumb Keyboard. It's a pretty simple concept, but really wonderful if it fits your needs: Thumb Keyboard splits the keyboard into several different configurations, depending on how you most often hold your device while your typing. If you're a landscape type of person, you can use the standard layout or try the "split layout," which puts the numberpad and arrows in the middle, keeping the most-used keys ergonomically (and thankfully!) closer to your thumbs. You can also customize the height of the keys, key-bindings, key spacing and skins. It also has prediction, autocorrect, and swipe gesture support. It's $2.35 to buy, and works with Android 2.2 and up. Check out this groovy jazz-backed video for more information.
Graffiti
Maybe you're just tired of this whole "keyboard" thing after all. If that's the case, don't give up on modern life, but instead try out Graffiti. This app replaces your keyboard with an input area where you draw the letters you want to type. It's as simple as that. It's free for Android 1.6 and up, and $2.99 to get rid of advertisements.
For those of us that don't have a Nexus or a device with Android 4.0 or higher, I hope some of those alternatives helped. Let us know in the comments section below, or suggest other keyboard apps for Android that we should check out.