Android 11 Brings Auto-fill Function On Keyboard Like Never Before

Web browsers have brought us many convenient ways of working. We may now take these for granted. Auto-filling is one of the examples here. The filling information we have saved in the browser or even third-party applications can bring this. This convenience, especially on a mobile phone where typing is so cumbersome, has become essential. Both iOS and Android have already supported this automatic form filling system, but for a long time, the Android version feels one step away from a seamless connection.

This is finally solved in Android 11. You no longer have to look for credit cards everywhere to choose the password or credit card information you want to fill in.

The normal working method of the auto-fill system is that when filling in passwords, credit card information, shipping information, etc., you must select some options from the drop-down or pop-up menus that appear in the text input column that needs to fill in such information. This is easy to achieve on a desktop or laptop computer with a keyboard and mouse, but on mobile devices, more action is definitely required.

In contrast, iOS has long since solved this problem, allowing auto-fill suggestions to appear above the keyboard. This minimizes the distance the finger moves out of the keyboard area. Android will finally adopt this practice in the next version 11, allowing users to quickly and more easily complete the login and payment forms.

Security Issues May Arise?

Considering that the auto-filled information will eventually be typed through the input method editor or IME, Android users who pay attention to privacy and security may raise objections to this new feature. Google guarantees that the IME application will actually not see these suggestions until the user selects one of the suggestions for filling in the form.

While bringing convenience, there is also a problem, that is, it must be supported by a password manager application and keyboard/IME at the same time. If any of them are not supported, the Android 11 system will fall back to the old drop-down method. Currently, before Android 11 is publicly released, only 1Password and Google’s own Gboard are ready for this new feature.