Google has quietly made a change to its Gboard keyboard for Android, and its making a lot of folks upset.
A new "Google" logo has begun appearing in the middle of the space bar in the Gboard keyboard for Android. Google didn't make any announcements about this change, but it began appearing for users overnight.
The change isn't sitting well with most Gboard users. There's a thread on the official Google Community forums titled "Remove the 'Google' from the Gboard space bar" that has more than 1500 upvotes, and a post about this change on the r/Android subreddit has nearly 3500 upvotes.
What's more, there don't appear to be any new features added by the presence of this Google logo, and there doesn't seem to be any setting to remove it either.
Google has also removed the "G" search button that used to be in the upper left of the Gboard keyboard. Now there's a small arrow that toggles an overflow menu of settings that gives you options like Clipboard, Themes, and One-handed Mode, and you can choose to add a Search shortcut here, but that's not quite as convenient as the old "G" search button.
Lots of folks are frustrated with Google's changes to Gboard, as Google removed some functionality of the keyboard while slapping its logo on the space bar that's always staring at you and doesn't add anything with its presence. It's unclear if Google will go back on this change and remove the logo or at least give you the option to do so, but one thing we do know is that there's some definite backlash to the change.
What do you think of Google's decision to add a logo to Gboard's keyboard?
