The Samsung Galaxy S8+ has been my daily driver ever since it was released back in March. In the past, I’ve been critical of Samsung’s mistakes with its flagship. However, Samsung got just about everything right with its latest and greatest. From the beautiful and durable exterior design to the internal specs that make the phone speedy, there’s no flaw I can point at. I’ve been using it everyday without wanting to switch to any other phone and it has reminded me why I’ve been a fan of Samsung ever since the Galaxy Note 3. Another one of my favorite Samsung features is its keyboard. It’s quite different from the stock Google Android keyboard where it offers a taller layout for a number row (I love having access to numbers) and advanced features like predictive text.
What is predictive text?
Predictive text is an input technology that facilitates typing on a mobile device by suggesting words the end-user may wish to insert in a text field. Predictions are based on the context of other words in the message and the first letters typed. (source: techtarget)
In a nutshell, it’s Samsung’s way of helping users of its smartphones type faster by offering word suggestions. Over time, Samsung’s keyboard learns better suggestions based on words you type frequently. If you happen to type the same search on a regular basis, like when I type in the stock ticker NBIX, it will offer that suggestion more frequently than other words. Or if you happen to look up content that you don’t want others to know about, like adult content, it is definitely tracking that information rather quickly.
You can test what your keyboard will offer up by opening a blank document like a new email. Simply click on the words that the Samsung keyboard offers and it will put together a string of your more commonly used phrases. Or you can simply click on the web address bar in Chrome or the Internet browser, and allow the words to fly there too. If you don’t like what you see you can reset your keyboard settings to default or turn off predictive settings altogether.
I love Samsung’s predictive feature as it has certainly gotten better which each iteration. If you’re not in the same boat as me, I’ll provide instructions below for turning it off or resetting it.
Here’s how to change the keyboard settings:
- Goto Settings. You can find the Settings app in the app drawer, or you can open it from the notification panel at the top right.
- Goto General Management
- Click Language and input
- Click On-screen keyboard
- Click Samsung Keyboard
- You can turn off Predictive text by clicking on the toggle
- You can also delete your history by clicking on Reset to default settings