
Google Now on your iPhone and iPad - nreece
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/04/google-now-on-your-iphone-and-ipad-with.html
======
eitally
My favorite feature of Google Now is that when I've searched for a
place/address in Chrome on a PC, it automatically pops up with proposed
navigation in a card on my phone. That has saved me so many times from the
"dammit, I can't remember the street number" while moving from house to car.

p.s. This is one widget where allowing it to use the maximum space possible
makes a lot of sense, especially when traveling internationally (traffic,
places, weather, currency, timezone, social/birthdays, calendar events,
"things nearby".

~~~
rogerbinns
The problem with this is their false matches. For example I looked up cffi (C
foreign function interface) library. They decided to add a stock ticker of the
same letters despite me never clicking on any stock links.

Any lookups of other things give the same results, such as looking up news
stories (eg a plane crash starts tracking flights of the same number) or how
many calories there are in a McDonalds burger (starts showing nearest
locations). I don't remember the example now but I've had it decide other
searches are really for sports teams. (Annoyingly they also don't consider
Formula 1 a sport.)

The biggest problem is the functionality is non-deterministic. You can't be
sure if a card will appear for flights (eg you look one up you expect to meet
tomorrow), and you get unintended junk at other times.

The reason is that Google are taking a superficial approach, almost just doing
string matching. They aren't going deeper and figuring out more context (eg
did I mean a stock, which day do I care about for a flight, is there any
chance I'm looking for a McDonalds versus looking at corporate financials).

~~~
badgar
> You can't be sure if a card will appear for flights

In my experience, Google Now finds my flights _in my Gmail_ 100% of the time.
For at least a dozen flights across the US. And for some airports (SFO is one,
unsurprisingly) it even has the terminal and gate information ready! Google
Now makes the "arriving at the airport" experience better every time for me.

~~~
rogerbinns
I had some friends arriving at SFO from Dubai a few weeks later, but had no
way of telling if Now would show the right flight on the right day since there
is no card about future flights. Similar story for the cross country flight
they took a few days later.

In order for me to depend on Now, I need to know I can trust it and it only
got one of the flights right. There is no way to know if it will do the right
thing in the future unless you keep checking and having a backup plan.

~~~
badgar
That's because it's Google Now, not Google Planner. It's for giving you
information relevant to _right now._ You don't plan to use Google Now for
something, you check it when you want information relevant to you at the
moment. If you stop trying to make Google Now into a personal organizer,
you'll enjoy using it more.

~~~
rogerbinns
> It's for giving you information relevant to right now

More accurately it is giving you a random subset of information that might be
relevant right now. The behaviour is not deterministic so you can't rely on
it.

~~~
badgar
Random is incorrect.

------
epo
Funny, if Apple trawled through your email, calendar and search history to
pull a stunt like this people would be up in arms.

Guess whether a walled garden is a bad thing depends on your particular brand
of fanboyishness.

Personally speaking, the idea of Google displaying things based on my email
history, diary and a knowledge of my location makes me shudder, "You're near
that motel where you had that quickie last month, want to make a
reservation?".

~~~
pkulak
People are "up in arms" about Google's email reading _constantly_. Microsoft
is producing brand new ads about it as we type. Maybe it's just hard to care
after this long? Google has been traipsing through my email for a decade now
and all that's ever come of it has been my personal convenience.

~~~
smackfu
Yeah, even the comment you are responding to is complaining about Google's
email reading.

------
driverdan
After listening to friends rave about Now and reading so many positive
comments online I really wanted to like it. I've been using it for a few
months and my experience is significantly worse than what others have
reported. It always seems to show me notifications for the wrong information
at the wrong time.

Take directions. I work at a coworking space 4 miles from my home. The hours
I'm there vary. Now seems to try predicting when I'm going to leave and shows
me directions home. Its timing is never correct and I don't need directions
for a route I drive all the time.

I can only remember one instance of it correctly notified me of when to leave
(with directions) for something on my calendar. Often it just shows directions
without the "Leave Now" message.

Sometimes it notifies me of the weather. Sometimes it doesn't. I haven't
figured out that pattern yet.

Overall it just doesn't seem to understand my usage patterns.

~~~
sahaskatta
It doesn't work too well on the first day. Use it for a few days and it will
begin to learn your habits.

~~~
gee_totes
Not if you continually use public transportation. I go all over the place in
NYC, and there doesn't seem to be a way to get the directions to default to
public transportation. Having driving directions and traffic wait time when I
don't have a car is kind of useless.

~~~
nedrichards
Press the i button in the top right hand corner of the card. Select
'Transportation Mode' from the expander. Select from Driving, Public
Transport, Walking, Cycling etc.

~~~
mentat
Excellent, thank you so much for this. "Next train leaving in <x> minutes" is
sweet.

------
eddieroger
I fell for Google Now when I booted my old Nexus to test test something, and
Google Now had read through my emails and showed me a tracking status for a
UPS package I was expecting. I was pretty jealous of that functionality, but
never convinced to go back to Android just for one feature. Now, I really have
no reason.

It's also pretty telling of something when more iOS devices have Google Now
than Android devices do.

~~~
blhack
I had a similar "whoa" moment a couple of weeks ago.

Google alerted me that I should leave for Santa Barbara "now".

Which was really, really weird for me, since I was already halfway there (from
Phoenix).

Apparently, it had read through my emails, seen a receipt for sigur ros
tickets from ticketmaster, figured out where I was, and already calculated how
long it would take me to get there.

That is _insanely awesome_.

~~~
keso
I don't know if Google Now is that clever.

If you had an event in a calendar which had something in the "Location"-field
it took the location you should be at from there.

Still it is a "whoa" moment. :)

~~~
commandar
I've had it recognize order confirmations for concert tickets to a show a
couple of hours away, parse them, and automatically create a notification with
navigation at an appropriate time to leave.

------
fratis
I have a question for our Android-using brethren who've had the opportunity to
play with Now. I've read a bit about it over the past few weeks, and I've been
excited about a port to iOS, but now that I have it, I'm not sure how or if
it'll fit into my life day-to-day.

At first brush, all I see is a weather widget. I know there's more to it, but
where exactly does the magic happen? What have you done (if anything) to
maximize its value?

~~~
cheald
Make sure you have search history turned on in your Google account - that's
when the magic happens.

Also, I'm not quite sure how the iOS experience will be compared to Android -
on Android, Google Now can proactively push data to users via the ridiculously
powerful notifications system, and the intents mechanism lets it hook into the
other parts of the phone seamlessly. iOS' notification center is distinctly
less advanced, and it obviously has no intents mechanism, so it may feel less
"magical" than it does on Android, simply because it'll require more user
proactivity to bridge that gap.

Here's a list of all the cards that Google Now might show you:
<http://support.google.com/nexus/4/answer/2839499?hl=en>

~~~
speg
Looks like it doesn't even use notifications on iOS. That's a big bummer :(

~~~
hnriot
yeah, by the time I've remembered to open Google Now and slide up the cards I
would very likely have realized what I might have forgotten.

For me, it's only showing the local weather, which I can see out my office
window. And besides, this is CA. Forecast for the rest of the year is Sunny
and warm.

------
zmanian
I'm a bit surprised that the iphone version of Google Now beat the Chrome
version of Google Now.

In my mind, Google Now is about carving out a space on devices where they can
actually show high value contextual advertising outside of search. Their pitch
to advertisers will be much stronger if they have a foothold on every device.

I'm also surprised that this was released before Google I/O. Between near
confirmation that Android will be 4.3, and the string of major product
releases of the last couple of months, it looks like any major announcements
will have to come from left field. The Google X people have been dropping
hints about some sort of Control Systems thing....

~~~
pavanky
> I'm also surprised that this was released before Google I/O

I haven't been at the Google I/O but it wouldn't be surprising if they did not
want to have anything to do with a competitor mentioned at _their_ conference.

~~~
ben1040
Last year at I/O, one of their big keynote announcements was Chrome for iOS.

------
kailuowang
I've used personal assistant like products before. But google now is the only
one I keep going back to. Personal context is critical for a working personal
assistant - you need to know the whereabout, the calendar, the habit, the
preferences about everything. That's the power of Google streamline of
products.

Google better not be evil.

~~~
dpcx
> Google better not be evil.

Given their history, that's an awful big statement to make.

~~~
Kiro
Who thinks Google is evil?

~~~
sbuk
I do. They are the proverbial sheep in wolves clothing IMHO. It's why I choose
not to use their products. Unlike many though, I have no issue with anyone
else using their products. Google Now seem like a cool product, but _for me_
the cost is far too high.

------
adlpz
Well, I hate to admit it, because I am an ex-iOS user that ran away from it
because of the closed ecosystem, but seeing that it keeps aggregating the
absolute best applications, even from Google, and with the goodness everyone
feels is coming from the Ive-influenced iOS 7, I might have to fall back into
the walled garden.

Apple is really good at this stuff.

~~~
mehta
Not sure what you mean by "absolute best applications" since the app on ios is
fundamentally limited by the APIs that are provided by the OS. I agree that
ios has some of the better apps but I don't think presence of Google Now on
ios is better then that on Android.

~~~
smith7018
As someone who has used all three major platforms extensively, I think I could
shed some light on this.

iOS has the "absolute best apps" because of the level of polish, design, and
near-pixel-perfect elements visible in the apps. I've used Android for years
(SGS2 and Nexus 7) and many of the apps are poorly designed and have even
poorer implementations. Many of them feel like they are just 5 standard UI
widgets put together on the screen is just bland. This can be seen by how many
Android applications use Holo but don't try to give it their own personality.
Small changes to the UI can lead to a personalized and tailored/polished feel
(Starbuck's green standard navbar, Netflix's logo on their own red navbar,
etc). Also, iOS apps seem to experiment more with gestures and UX concepts.
Using apps like Clear, Google Maps, Haze, etc. really shows you how well
thought out an app could be. It just seems like many of Android's apps look
the exact same and lack that attention to detail, I guess.

Also, please remember that "more powerful" doesn't correlate to "best." I
would rate Clear much, much higher than most Android apps. While it doesn't
allows me to access the root filesystem, overclock the CPU, or alter the boot
image, it's extremely intuitive, attractive, and works beautifully.

~~~
lucian1900
What you describe is precisely the sort of thing I dislike in mobile apps. On
a (non-Windows) desktop, no one would dare do such crazy, confusing things.

~~~
smith7018
These "crazy, confusing things" these mobile app devs are trying are expanding
the way we use applications. Making apps gesture-based has lead Google Maps
(for iOS), Clear, and even Facebook (swipe down closes image) to have much
more intuitive UIs. I'm much happier that developers are experimenting with
improved UX experiences rather than just trusting the designs Google or Apple
decided on.

~~~
lucian1900
Gestures are of debatable utility of course, I often find some of them useful.
There are only two problems: 1) not discoverable and 2) overlap with system
gestures. The latter is particularly annoying when websites do it.

The part I have a problem with is the wildly different-looking and different-
functioning buttons, lists, menus and so on. If they had exercised some
restraint and only applied a minimal colour-only theme, I could figure out
what their UI does after just looking at it.

------
stylo
I honestly did not expect to see Google Now on iDevices. For me it is
definitely the "killer app" on my Android phone.

~~~
k-mcgrady
I used to think that but lately I've been considering switching to Android.
Google Now is one of the reasons. Giving me the opportunity to really try it
might make be switch now. I think it's because Google Now isn't the kind of
feature you can just test in the shop and make a decision on. It requires
actual use to know if you like it.

~~~
dodecaphonic
I had the opportunity to use it for a few weeks at work, when developing and
Android app, and made the jump from the iPhone to a Nexus 4. Google Now _is_
incredible. Last week I went to another city for a family funeral and the next
day it was showing traffic to the place I slept, sights to see, etc. This
weekend I was walking around town and a card showed up with movie times. It's
little things that wow you and actually turn out to be useful.

The Android experience is very good now, but I would be lying if I said that
app quality is nearly as high, especially in things like photography and
audio. That still makes me think about whether my commitment is long-term.

------
mcintyre1994
Dammit Google, this is awesome, and genius, and pretty much obsoletes Siri,
but why didn't you push this in the Android Google search app? I really want
Now on my phone since it's awesome on my tablet, but I can't get Jellybean
onto it.

~~~
DigitalJack
I don't have Siri on my iphone (a 4), but I always thought the benefit was
from composing text messages and such...

This is just search isn't it?

~~~
mcintyre1994
I believe on an Android phone it integrates all Google voice actions (I may be
being unfair to say it obsoletes Siri for iOS as some actions may be
unavailable for iOS), which include texting/calling etc. It's not just for
searching though, no. It basically acts like Siri, in that it gathers cards of
information, but it does that without you asking using a wealth of data Google
hold.

~~~
DigitalJack
Right, but in the context here, on iOS, it's just search as far as I can tell.

------
nl
I transited through Melbourne airport last weekend coming home from a holiday.
Checked my phone and Google Now told me the projected travel time to the hotel
I always stay in when I'm there for work.

(Judging by the other comments here, maybe I should _complain_ about that - it
should have known I was on holidays. But I'm not jaded enough and so I was
just dazzelled by the wonder of it).

------
lawdawg
Glad to see this coming to iOS, the more users, the more feedback Google will
get on how to improve the service for _everyone_.

Hope Apple can try their hand at creating some cross platform applications as
well.

~~~
tambourine_man
_Hope Apple can try their hand at creating some cross platform applications as
well._

iTunes? QuickTime?

~~~
talisMal
Never on Linux, not on Android, nor has Apple shown any indication of
supporting Windows RT. If anything, Apple's abandonment of Safari for Windows
indicates that they can't wait to support their platform solely. Even their
retail store app, which is used to sell hardware products as little downside
of being cross-platform, is iOS only. That's just cutting off your nose to
spite your face behavior we've come to expect from Apple.

~~~
alayne
Where's Internet Explorer and Office 2013 for OS X? Which significant
Microsoft apps run on iOS?

Obviously it makes sense for Google to get its advertising hooks everywhere it
can, but I don't see Apple and Microsoft having the same cross-platform
incentives at all.

------
DigitalSea
As a new Android convert I've found Google Now to be awesome. Sure, it's not
entirely accurate or intuitive, but it definitely helps and is somewhat good
at knowing what information I want to see (it seems to be getting better with
each day that passes). Based on the comments people expect Google Now to be a
mind reading service, but it's merely a companion that tries showing you the
information you want without having to ask for it. Google Now coupled with
Google Glass will no doubt be an awesome combination though. Good to see it
finally hit iOS devices, for those who aren't too picky you'll find it a fun
and helpful app to have.

------
pclark
It's kind of wild that Google knows that the only American sports team I
follow is Miami Heat. First time launch of Google Now for iOS was the weather
and their score yesterday. Amazing first user impression.

------
chrisballinger
Downloading the new Google Search app for my iPhone re-activated "Location
History" for my account and tracked me all day until it sent me an email
(privacy notice) about how my location history was on.

What the fuck, Google.

------
kenjackson
If I have to launch the app is it really Google _Now_? Or do I not need to
launch the app?

~~~
speg
I'm trying to figure out. I'm assuming it has to use Notifications?

update: does not use notifications :(

~~~
calebegg
How does it work on Android? Does it use notifications there?

~~~
jsnell
It uses a bunch of different kinds of interaction:

\- A normal home screen widget

\- A lock screen widget

\- A special "drag up from the home button" gesture that can be triggered from
any app

\- Rich notifications. (As in you can trigger useful actions straight from the
notification. E.g. for an event that's starting soon, you can email all
participants.)

------
umsm
Let's talk about privacy: Does it exist? Is this something to worry about?

~~~
bjustin
It sure does! Google can only scan your email, calendar, etc. if you let them.
Use outlook.com or Fastmail or iCloud or another alternative if you don't like
the agreement Google requires.

~~~
mhurron
Of course if you don't give Google this information, you might as well not
opt-in to Google Now.

------
enginous
Again I run into the issue that Google doesn't seem to release their iPhone
apps internationally. I'm in Europe (Iceland, specifically) and I can't
download the Google Search or Google Authenticator apps because they're not
available in our App Store.

Does this happen to people in any other European countries?

~~~
jvzr
It is available in France, but yet again France is one of the "bigger"
markets.

Couldn't you get access to the UK's or Ireland's store? All you need is a
voucher card and a fresh email address. That's how I got my US account for US-
exclusive apps.

------
gadders
Can I have Google Now on Android 4.0.4 please?

------
kalleboo
What do you guys do about multiple accounts? I have my email on a Google Apps
for Business account since it's set up on a custom domain, but I have my
legacy gmail account for everything else (Search, Maps, YouTube, Google+,
Play, Checkout, the list goes on). Since there's no way to merge accounts, and
Now can only use a single account, I can either have it only get data from my
mail, or get data from everywhere BUT my mail.

------
super_mario
And it uses location service ALL the time, even when the app is not running,
ensuring I never use the feature.

------
songgao
Has anybody else tried it on iPhone? Mine only shows a wether card, and a map
card showing me the way home now; nothing more. I even tried creating event in
my calendar (both Google and iOS calendars) but no card is added. Is there a
significant sync delay for Google Now to retrieve information?

~~~
psbp
Give it time. Mine popped up 5 cards that I commonly get in Google Now on my
Nexus 7.

~~~
songgao
So it's a initialization delay? If you add something in your calendar, does
that pop up as a card right away?

~~~
psbp
When is the event? Reminders usually pop up the night before the event for me.

~~~
songgao
I tried to put it like 1 hour in the future, or 30 min in the future. I think
I wanted to ask is, if you add an event that it should pop up now (e.g., it's
in the evening, and the just added event is tomorrow), does it show up
instantly or is there a delay for Google Now to find out about the event?

~~~
Shank
It tries to be predictive - if an event is added that happens too soon it
won't pick up on it. Add a calendar event for tomorrow and see what happens.

------
ScottWhigham
Wait - I'm lost here. I've downloaded the Google Search app, and I've signed
in (as per the article's last paragraph). But I don't see anything called
Google Now anywhere. I tried swiping (as per the video) but nada. Help?

------
piyush_soni
Isn't it a stupid decision? Why would they release two of their best selling
points - first Google maps, and now "Google Now" to iOS? They could have been
two of the biggest USPs for Android, and they destroyed it all.

~~~
bsimpson
Because Google isn't a mobile company - they're a service company. They don't
care if you use Android (which makes up barely any of their revenue) or iOS,
so long as you use their services.

Google makes money by connecting their users to commerce opportunities. Their
ability to monetize is linearly related to how many active users they have.
They'd rather have 70% of the market through Android plus some proportion of
non-Android users finding them through apps than have 75% of the total market
and rely 100% on Android to attract users on mobile.

They get more total users and have a more diverse base. If Android starts to
lose share, they still have the ability to monetize the other platforms.

------
JumpCrisscross
This seems like a proof-of-concept - it doesn't even throw up iOS
notifications. Integration into Chrome for iOS would probably be a better way
of gaining a persistent presence in front of Google fans with an iPhone.

------
lucaspiller
I really like the dynamic header pictures. It seems to be based upon your
location. Any ideas how they are made / where they are from?

<http://i.imgur.com/0rEQcKp.png>

~~~
hnriot
I think it's a co-incidence, for me it shows snow capped mountains, and I'm in
San Francisco. We don't have mountains, or snow anywhere short of driving a
few hours.

~~~
clauretano
In Seattle it shows a snow-capped volcano (Mount Rainier), an illustrated
version of the Space Needle, the Pike Place Market sign, and a couple downtown
buildings from the viewpoint of Kerry Park[1]. They have a generic rotation of
images plus some location-specific ones. I'd love to see the whole collection
laid out somewhere.

[1]: <http://i.imgur.com/UgOhEUR.jpg>

------
nightTrevors
I'd love to see a quick way to copy the URL of the page you're on, since I
more often text people links rather than email them, and "Share via iMessage"
doesn't seem to be implemented yet

------
inlined
I'm halfheartedly excited. Now was a great android feature, but it will only
be amazing in ios if it can be hacked to run outside the app like Facebooks
chat heads were recently.

------
AJay17
I have my own google apps domain and tried to sign up for it with my email,
but it says that my I haven't enabled it for my domain. Anybody know where I
go to do that?

~~~
techscruggs
Its buried [http://rottmann.net/2012/12/enable-google-now-google-apps-
fo...](http://rottmann.net/2012/12/enable-google-now-google-apps-for-
business/)

------
josephjrobison
How does it affect battery life? Is it always sucking in the GPS? I was using
the Moves app and I loved it, but it drained my battery faster than usual.

~~~
eco
On Android it turns on the GPS once every 30 minutes to update your location.
If another app turns on the GPS it'll take the opportunity and update then and
reset the 30 minute timer.

When I got Android 4.1 with Google Now my battery life actually got better
(presumably because of improvements made throughout the OS) so it's hard to
say what impact it has on battery for me.

------
uptown
Speaking of Google properties on Apple devices - anybody got any clues on when
Google Maps might get an official iPad version?

------
lifeformed
Is there a desktop version of this? I've been looking for a replacement for
the deprecated iGoogle.

------
Macsenour
Always on GPS, not cool with that.

------
mikec3k
It really needs push notifications

------
SmileyKeith
5 Google Apps on my homescreen. 2 Apple apps, Settings and Camera.

------
pgrote
How do you tell Google Now on IOS where "home" is for you?

~~~
cheald
You can probably change it in the app settings, or just change it here:
<https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0/dashboard>

Or here:
[https://maps.google.com/maps/myplaces?&hl=en](https://maps.google.com/maps/myplaces?&hl=en)

------
Anelya
Finally! My dream come true!!!

------
akivabamberger
What's this mean for Cue?

------
testingd
I love Google Now.

