Using Hindi Keyboard with Android Phones

I am using my Android based Samsung Galaxy S plus phone since more than a year now. And I must say, buying this phone has been really a nice decision so far. Although at present, we have many new devices with a higher configuration at much lesser cost, still I am happy. One reason being, I can do most of the things what any other high-end mobile device is capable of. One recent experience is about using 'Google Hindi Input'.

Google recently launched an official app 'Google Hindi Input' for enabling Hindi typing on the Android based mobile devices. This app requires a minimum of Android 2.2 or above, and occupies just around 6.0 MB of space. I tried that on my phone, and its (now) working nicely. The official blog from Google do describe the way to use it, but they didn’t mention how to start / launch this after installation. So after finally figuring out the way to use it, here is my experience with Google Hindi Input:

First you need to download the 'Google Hindi Input' application from Google Play store. In the Google 'Play Store', i searched for the phrase 'google hindi input' and the first search result was the desired 'Google Hindi Input' app. 

After that, this was a simple installation procedure:

 

I downloaded and installed the app. Then I thought of trying it. I tried to create a new message in Hindi. However, I was not able to find the Hindi keyboard or letters anywhere. The input message options were still all the same English font only. I tried exploring all option in the Samsung keypad settings, but there were no whereabouts of this new Hindi keypad.

Just to confirm about the proper installation, I went back to the Google play store again. This was now displaying that the application is already installed.

It’s even showing in list of Downloaded apps under Manage Applications. 

So where is it? The official blog from Google do describe the way to use it, but they didn’t mention how to start / launch this after installation. Therefore, I gave it a try by doing general search and browsing or internet. One good source for hints was found as the description provided under the Google play store itself. Although, this did not worked out as end – to – end steps for my phone model, but it helped a lot.

 

For my phone, I did the following steps to enable the Hindi Input keypad. 

1) Go to Settings >Locale and text.  

Here tick the check box for 'Google Hindi Input'. This would permit your phone to use Google Hindi Input. 

But this is not done yet, after permitting your phone, you'll also need to select the Hindi Keypad to enable Hindi typing. This can be done in the following manner:

1) Open the text box where you would want to type something in Hindi. When you long press in the typing area, you get option to select 'Input method'. (You can also long press the small 'wheel' icon in the last row of the keypad. I did this when composing a new text message, and got the following screen:                

 

      

Select the 'Google Hindi Input' from the list of input methods shown:

Now you should get the keypad, which is demonstrated in the videos on the Official blogs of Google. 

From here onward  it’s all your experience and exploration. Do let me know in case anyone is still facing any issues in using this, and we can explore better ways of doing this together.