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Google is developing an iPhone keyboard to boost its mobile search offering

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By Rebecca Stewart, Trends Editor

March 23, 2016 | 2 min read

Google is working on a third-party keyboard for Apple's iOS to integrate the search engine into "highly used" parts of iPhone and iPad interfaces.

google making keyboard for ios

The product has been in development for several months according to the verge, and has been designed to boost the number of Google searches on Apple devices.

Google is increasingly focusing on mobile and looking at ways to become as big a player on the platform as it is on desktop, less than a year ago it made a significant update to its algorithm to crack-down on websites that weren't mobile-ready.

Incorporating a number of features such as gesture-based typing (which lets Google guess your intended word) and buttons for picture and GIF searches, the keyboard will combine characteristics of Google's Andriod keyboard with a series of new components.

Since mobile now accounts for a significant bulk of paid search clicks and ad spending around the world, it's no wonder the internet giant is upping the ante. In the last three months of 2015 alone more than half of all clicks on paid search ads in the Americas and Asia-Pacific came from mobile devices, according to eMarketer.

Thus far Google has declined to comment on the news, but the keyboard is thought to have been undergoing testing among employees for months.

At the start of March Google launched its Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project to help publishers create mobile-optimised content.

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