A teardown of the beta-channel GBoard 8.0 APK reveals preliminary support for the previously announced digital clipboard functionality addition to Google's keyboard, as well as user dictionary export and shared language prompts.
Initially released for iOS in May 2016, with the release for Google's own OS curiously coming seven months later in December 2016, GBoard was Google's answer to the increasingly advanced digital keyboards being released for Android, such as Swiftkey and Grammarly, and sported a new design as well as far greater features than their outdated ‘Google Keyboard'.
Google announced upcoming clipboard support months ago, and hidden functionality was present in the 7.7 release, however with the 8.0 update, currently in beta, it seems Google will finally be rolling out the feature to everyone.
The clipboard feature is not merely a list of all ‘clips' however, Google is implementing a simple but effective security measure in the form of timing out each individual clip an hour after it is copied, unless the clip is ‘pinned' in which case it will likely remain indefinitely. The entire clipboard can also be disabled if you do not want it at all for security concerns.
The UI is what you'd expect, being a minimal box area accessible from GBoard's extended shortcuts, likely to just list each clip as a small ‘card', perhaps with the time of copying also?
Regardless, at the moment the feature still has not been fully switched on by Google as though the UI is accessible, nothing copied is actually stored in it.
As well as the clipboard functionality, GBoard 8.0's beta also hints at the ability to export and import users' custom dictionaries (words users use which are not present in GBoard's own relevant dictionary), and suggests the addition of prompts to install the relevant language for users who are invited to use GBoard by friends of a different language.
Images and Source: 9TO5Google
