Google Introduces Voice Typing Assistant Toolbar for Pixel Tablet with Gboard’s Latest Update
Google has recently launched a voice typing assistant toolbar for its Pixel Tablet, accessible through the Gboard keyboard, this innovation follows the introduction of handwriting capabilities in text fields and a new user interface for the keyboard.
The new toolbar, designed to be simple and streamlined, replaces the full keyboard visibility when voice typing is activated via the voice assistant, Google crafted this toolbar to allow users to see more of their screen while voice typing, as it is compact and unobtrusive, displaying only essential options without occupying much space.
This voice typing assistant toolbar enables quick setting adjustments, the use of voice commands, switching to emojis, and accessing the clipboard, it can be moved around the screen, and text suggestions appear near the writing area for ease of writing and editing, the full menu on the left side provides access to settings, voice command visibility, clipboard display, and translation.
Additionally, there’s a shortcut for opening the emoji/expressive keyboard in a floating window, with instructional prompts in the middle, on the right side, there’s a button to revert to the full keyboard and a microphone for starting or stopping speech-to-text conversion.
Google states that this new keyboard interface is a way to see more of your screen while using voice typing, the toolbar can be moved anywhere, including to the left or right edges of the screen in a vertical layout, text suggestions appear inline next to the cursor, and a “toolbar” button next to the voice microphone is available when the full keyboard is open, this toolbar persists in various text fields.
Currently, this voice typing assistant toolbar is available in the beta version of the Gboard app, version 13.7, on the Pixel Tablet running the stable first quarterly platform release of Android 14, it is unclear if Google plans to bring this toolbar to Pixel phones.
Google hinted at something similar for phones last year, suggesting that this new method of voice typing may not be exclusive to tablets.
