You don&#x27;t have to &quot;allow full access&quot; to use it as simply a swiping keyboard.  It&#x27;s a better keyboard than Swype, even with &quot;full access&quot; turned off.<p>I don&#x27;t care about gifs or emojis.  One of the only things I miss on iOS as an ~8-year user of Android is the swiping keyboard.  This gets you that.<p>Additionally, I think the privacy of using this keyboard without &quot;full access&quot; is better than using the android builtin keyboard.  Unless google is doing some side-channel attack (is this possible?  seems harder than on android) to funnel your keystrokes out through some other google app on your phone which does have internet access, it&#x27;s just a dumb keyboard.<p>Now, the sketchiness of guiding users to turn on &quot;allow full access&quot; by default... well.  It would be paternalistic for me (as an armchair privacy enthusiast) to say &quot;google shouldn&#x27;t be encouraging the general population to divulge their keystrokes&quot;.