If you dislike writing, or find that you’re generally not very good at it, then you’;re probably quite happy about the recent wave of AI writing tools. But for all those times when you want to be able to write authentically, and without machine assistance, Android 16 might be able to step in and help.
According to Mishaal Rahman, who has been snooping through Android 16 developer preview 2, there appear to be two new features in the EditorInfo class related to Android’s AI writing tools — isWritingToolsEnabled() and setWritingToolsEnabled(). For those that don’t know, the EditorInfo class is the link between keyboards and apps, letting the two share information about what’s in text fields.
isWritingToolsEnabled() is the check Android does to see if AI-writing tools are switched on for a specific app or text editor. AI tools are switched on by default, but the setWritingTooldEnabled() is what lets apps opt out of those same AI writing tools, and in the process keep control of what’s written in the hands of you and the app itself.
As Rahman notes, most apps don’t have any reason to opt out of Ai writing tools “in most text fields”. But some may still want to keep AI from altering text in certain circumstances. Rahman speculates that this could include fields for email addresses, passwords and phone numbers.
Gboard already does this, but the tools could be Google’s way of trying to better enforce that across third-party keyboards as well. Or at least ensuring developers have the ability to get it done.
I suspect this tool may also be utilized in cases where apps don’t want any AI interference. If there are camera apps out there that market themselves as being AI-free, then I would bet money on word-processing and note-taking apps doing the same thing. Or, alternatively, it could be a specific setting inside an existing app — to accommodate the people who don’t need or want writing help from AI.
We’ll just have to see what Android 16 brings us when it launches next year, and how developers are going to utilize this particular feature.
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