Google Now for iPhone & iPad Coming Soon?
If a leaked video is right, iPhone users could be very close to having access to Google Now on their devices.
Promo videos leaked to Engadget appear to confirm that the real-time search abilities of Google Now are indeed on their way to iPhone and iPad users the world over.
According to a voice over heard during the video, the feature will be accessible from the company’s current iOS search application by simply swiping up from that app’s home screen. From there you’ll have access to all the auto search features Android users enjoy with their version of Google Now, including access to cards for flights, traffic and more.
Google Now debuted this past June during Google I/O and represents the company’s biggest push into active search techniques. The majority of Google’s users interact mainly with the company’s search page to seek out information they are looking for. Google Now presents much of that same information you would obtain from a Google Search results page in a passive manner; dishing out the latest in everything from flight information, to movie tickets, and real-time traffic exactly when you’ll need it using algorithms and GPS triangulation.
This strategy stands in stark contrast to Siri, Apple iOS’s, native personal assistant. Using their voice, iOS users are able to ask the search engine a question or give it a command and have a backend service find that information for you or perform the action without you having to do much of anything else. In that way Siri is nearly identical today’s traditional methods of search.
Google Now is popularly seen as Google’s answer to Siri and though the move to bring Google Now to arch platform rival iOS could seem strange at first, this would hardly be the first time Google has committed to bringing its flagship services to iOS. Google has routinely done this in an effort to aid adoption of its technologies in the past, the most notable of which has been its Google Maps technologies.
It’s possible that Google is prepping Google Now for iPhone and iPad for a release at Google I/O in May.
