The best thing about Android is also the worst thing about Android — namely, the software is very good at predicting your needs, although it does this by relentlessly collecting information about you. If you’re cool with Google having so much information about you at its disposal, however, you’ll really love what it’s done with Android 6.0 Marshmallow, particularly the new Google Now on Tap feature.
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The Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern has written up a review of Google Now on Tap where she explains that it’s really Google’s “nuclear weapon” in its war with the iPhone.
“It brings together so many of Google’s talents, including crowd-sourced intelligence, that it’s hard to imagine how Apple could match it,” she writes in her review.
What’s so impressive about the new version of Google Now is the way that it recognizes context for just about everything you do on your phone. So for instance, if someone sends you a text message that contains an address and a time, Google Now on Tap will prompt you to use that information to create a calendar appointment. It also works beautifully with Google’s traditional search functionality, Stern found.
“I became addicted to those tricks and more. While reading an article about Hillary Clinton’s ‘Saturday Night Live’ appearance, it suggested more information about Clinton, including shortcuts to her Twitter and Instagram accounts, and links to see more about her surprise cameo,” she writes. “On that same article, I also held down the microphone icon and asked, ‘How old is she now?’ Knowing who ‘she’ meant, Google quickly responded, ‘Hillary Clinton is 67.’ Similar tricks work in third-party apps including Spotify, Twitter and Facebook.”
Check out Stern’s full review of Google Now on Tap by clicking here.
