Microsoft's Word Flow Keyboard Gets Built-in Search

Watch out, Google Gboard: Microsoft's keyboard app is getting a built-in search feature as well.

Redmond on Tuesday updated its Word Flow app with some handy new features, including the ability to search for GIFs, images, and emoji right from the keyboard via Bing. You can also now easily find contacts when you need to share someone's phone number and look up things like restaurants, news, videos, facts to help you win an argument, and the weather forecast right from the keyboard.

Microsoft is, of course, aiming to compete with Google's recently released Gboard app, which lets you search and send information, emoji, and GIFs from your keyboard.

Word Flow, meanwhile, also now offers GIF predictions, showing you icons you might want to include in your message as you type. Like other keyboard apps, it also now shows word suggestions as you write out your messages.

First released in April, Word Flow sits at the bottom corner of the iPhone letting you quickly type out messages with a single finger. Those who don't want the "arc" mode for one-handed typing can use it as a standard keyboard in landscape mode.

Microsoft's Word Flow has garnered praise from users, but it's one of many alternative keyboards in the App Store, including Swype and SwiftKey, which Microsoft acquired in February.

Word Flow version 2.0 is available for download in the App Store now. For more, check out PCMag's review of Microsoft Word Flow Keyboard (for iPhone).

In other texting news, new research suggests you should be using your smartphone's speech-recognition software to text, instead of your thumbs. Researchers at Stanford University recently devised an experiment pitting Chinese tech giant Baidu's speech recognition software against 32 texters, ages 19 to 32, working with the built-in keyboard on an Apple iPhone. Baidu's Deep Speech 2 software was not only three times faster than the human typists, it was also more accurate. There's no word as to how the speech recognition software stacks up against Swype-style apps.