Google Now On Tap Will Potentially Change How We Interact with Our Devices

 Apps  

Google’s ability to index the internet via search arguably matters less in a world where people spend more and more of their time using discrete apps on their devices. Now On Tap though, is soon going to be able to step in and index content in apps on the fly too, effectively a whole new use paradigm.

Google Now is already an impressive tool for computers and smartphones.  Now, company has announced Google Now on Tap at the recent I/O event, an update that looks to greatly expand the features of the service and may completely change how you use your devices.

Google Now On Tap integrates with other apps on your device.  If you are listening to a song in Spotify, you can ask the service, "Who is the lead singer?" Using a contextual engine, the band will be determined directly from the content you are accessing.

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In an upcoming Android M release, Now On Tap, will allow you to tap and hold the home button for assistance without having to leave your apps or websites. In another example, if a friend emails you about seeing the new movie Tomorrowland, you can bring up Google Now without leaving your app, to quickly see the ratings, watch a trailer, or even buy tickets, and then get right back to what you were doing.

Using Google’s Knowledge Graph to expand to and more developers, look for Google Now On Tap to integrate with the new APIs, and grow into an even more powerful artificial intelligence tool. Apps will be more connected with the service, and everything will be searchable easily.

The development seems to fit well with the company's mission statement of, "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

"Imagine if Now On Tap is aware enough of the core functions of those apps that it can predict what you'd most likely want to do with them, and then execute on those needs?"

Joshua Topolsky points out that the move is significant for two reasons. The first is that it returns Google to a place of dominance as the glue that holds your digital life together. "The web has thrived and grown in no small part because of Google's ability to track, organize, and understand all of its disparate pieces. Now it's able to do the same thing with every app running on your phone. It allows Google to get back into the search game but by speaking the common language of apps. It gives the company a second life with access to user behavior and needs," he writes.

Secondly, it shows how Google can be an interconnecting layer between the apps almost a new operating system for your  device. 

This is a sea-change for how we use our mobile devices and how mobile apps interact with one another. Currently, we use OS-defined tools which let apps interact with each other (with rules defined by the OS-makers, not developers). But imagine if developers didn't have to think about how their work connects to the rest of your world? Imagine if Now on Tap is aware enough of the core functions of those apps that it can predict what you'd most likely want to do with them, and then execute on those needs?

SOURCE  Washington Post

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