Gboard

Gboard for Android gets a redesigned emoji & GIF picker on tablets and foldables

Ben Schoon | Sep 5 2024 - 12:15 am PT

Google is giving Gboard, its Android keyboard app, a redesigned menu for emoji and stickers that works better on tablets and big-screen devices like foldables.

Emoji has become a part of everyday language for many, making how you pick an emoji, a sticker, or a GIF a pretty key part of your smartphone. In some cases, this has been lacking. For instance, iPhones for years couldn’t search for emoji by name, instead requiring users to scroll through a lengthy list. Google’s Gboard keyboard for Android has always been pretty good in this regard, and now it’s getting a further boost on tablets and foldables.

In the latest Gboard beta updates (v14.6.02) Google has started rolling out a redesigned emoji and GIF picker that works on larger screens.

The big change here is that emoji, GIFs, and stickers now show up along the right side of the screen, with a portion of the left side now showing titles for each category.

Gboard already does this on smaller displays, but without full text descriptions and usually just showing icons for the various categories. The search bar is also considerably larger. The “lost” space isn’t really lost either, as GIFs especially were never formatted well on foldables, often only showing a row or two at a time, where this new UI can show several at a time. Tablets, apparently, spread this out even further with an additional bar to the left for the different pickers for emoji, GIFs, stickers, etc.

This new UI is showing up for us on Pixel 9 Pro Fold and Galaxy Z Fold 6 and, as Android Authority notes, it may not be a server-side change. Apparently, updating the Gboard app on a OnePlus Open was enough to trigger the new UI to show up.

Google will likely launch this to all users in the not too distant future but, for now, it’s only live for those enrolled in the Gboard beta.