I tried the Quillbot app, and here’s why you should stick to your regular keyboard

Predictive text and autocorrect on smartphones have largely taken away the worry of making those embarrassing typos, whether talking to your friends or your boss for that matter. Add to it the fact that they also pick up and learn words you tend to use frequently, and life becomes all the easier.  

That’s not to say, however, you can completely depend on them. After all, predictive text cannot suggest the right tonality depending on who you’re talking to. Neither does it ensure you always type out concise and clear text messages. And this is where I turned to the Quillbot keyboard app. 

What is the Quillbot app?

The Quillbot AI keyboard app doubles up as both, a grammar checker and a paraphrasing tool. A helpful tool for students and professionals alike, the keyboard can paraphrase your texts in a tone of your choosing in real-time. And all it takes is two taps.  

Remember when you copied an assignment from a friend and ran the text through the platform? Yes, Quillbot’s website needs no introduction. It twisted your words in a way that your teacher most likely never figured out you’d copied your assignments. Well, it is essentially the same tool but in the form of a keyboard app on your phone now. And what’s cool is that the basic paraphrasing tool and grammar checker are completely free. 

What I thought of Quillbot

I tried the Quillbot AI keyboard app on my Android smartphone for a couple of days. For starters, the keyboard is extremely easy to set up. All it took was two taps, one to turn the keyboard on from the app, and another to switch from Gboard to Quillbot. All from the app’s homepage, of course.  

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You can even access the paraphrasing tool within an app’s text window, whether it is WhatsApp, Google Keep, or Microsoft Outlook, for that matter. You needn’t type in text and paraphrase it from the app, although you do have the option to do so, in case you don’t want to accidentally hit ‘Send’ on that misworded text. 

The app sports a super clean interface and there are none of those pesky un-skippable advertisements, which is a huge relief. Moreover, it also allows you to customise your keyboard – whether it is for haptic feedback, keyboard height, auto-capitalisations and auto-corrections, and more.

Now, for the stuff that I didn’t like so much. For starters, the grammar-checking tool and autocorrect aren’t exactly accurate. While it may not have allowed me to make typos, it did throw up a few random articles and adjectives mid-sentence, with absolutely no context.  

Moreover, there were several suggestions from the paraphrasing tool, only available in the ‘Fluency’ mode in the free tier of the app. Much as there were several choices, they more often than not ended up making sentences wordier. For example, the app would throw up words such as ‘have not’ or ‘should not’ instead of haven’t and shouldn’t, which we generally use to make our texts more concise.  

And lastly, sentences from the paraphrasing tool didn’t flow in an extremely conversational tone. For that, one needs to use modes such as ‘Natural,’ ‘Simple’ or ‘Creative,’ which can rewrite text to make it sound more “human.” Unfortunately, however, those are all locked behind a paywall.  

The Quillbot AI keyboard app then, is certainly a step in the right direction. Being a (relatively) recent app, there are still many niggles to be worked out. While a handy tool then, it isn’t really the replacement to Gboard that I thought it would be. Not yet, at least.

How to get the Quillbot app

The Quillbot AI keyboard app is available from both, the Google Play Store as well as Apple’s app store, should you happen to be an iPhone user. 

It is completely free to use for the basic paraphrasing and grammar check tools. Bear in mind, however, that there is a 125-word limit on the latter on the app, although on the keyboard, it strangely has no such restrictions. And there is, of course, the fact that only ‘Fluency’ mode is available in the free version of the app. You can circumvent those restrictions though, for Rs 799 a month.