[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.

[tomkarlo]

I suspect that using the very simplified iOS notifications would probably get irritating quickly. Sample size of 1 but my iOS notifications tray is always a disaster compared to my Android, I think because it doesn't coalesce notifications the same way so you commonly have 5+ notifications for a single app.

[ben1040]

On Android, it often kicks off notifications when things are relevant to your situation. For example, it learns where home & work are (based on where I spend time during day or night). When travel time back home at rush hour is bad, it sends a notification to say I might want to leave earlier.

If you put a location in a Google calendar item, it will keep tabs on traffic and notify you when you should leave for your appointment.

If your search history shows you're searching for a sports team often, it'll have a standing card with that team's scores & schedules.

Google Now is connected to your Gmail and can pop up notifications for shipments, flights, restaurant reservations, etc based on receipts and boarding passes in your inbox.

[Pewpewarrows]

The "killer features" all come from you using other Google products/services while signed-in to the same account that you use with Google Now.

Search for "pizza" or a specific address on your computer while signed-in to Google Maps? The next time you look at your phone it tells you how long it would take to get there, and offers you turn-by-turn directions, automatically.

Have a flight confirmation email sent to your signed-in Gmail account? You'll be notified on your phone if your flight gets delayed, how long the trip will be, and information about your destination. Same goes for package delivery confirmation emails.

And those really only scratch the surface. The more you use it, the more you come to rely on it, which makes you want to use Google-branded services more and more often. It's a brilliant move on their part.

[ConceitedCode]

The magic happens in the best way. The idea is stuff only appears when it's useful and like "magic". For instance, when ever there is a bulls game it shows me who is playing with in the next day and the score when it's over. It'll tell me my time to get home or if I just googled a restaurant then it will tell me how long to get to the restaurant. I love it, but it's very subtle which is even better.

[mehta]

You will see more "magic" happen as you your the app. I don't know the state of app on ios but on Android, Google slowly learns about your home and office locations, it learns about stocks you search for, places you travel to, movies you search for etc. As a result of this,

- In mornings, I get the traffic to office from my home. - In evenings, I see the travel time back. - When I am visiting a different city/country, I get time, currency and weather updates. If the hotel reservation and flight reservation are in gmail, I also get the latest flight updates, the hotel checkin email etc. - I have the stocks card always on. - On fridays, I get updates on movies that are in theaters. - On weekends and on trips, I get photos of nearby places (I click a lot of photos)

- I am not a sports fan but I have heard that the sports integration is decent and useful too.

Finally, - I have not used the ios app so don't know if that has all the functionality as Android. - I don't know if ios can have always-on apps or hardware shortcuts so I don't know if you can get to it with 0-taps and if it will keep the cards up to date in background.

[ambiate]

The magic happens when I search for an address in Google Maps on my browser. When I get lost attempting to go to the address in my car, I can just slide down my notifications and Google Now has the address ready to go into navigation. This saves me time/anxiety of typing/getting more lost/voice recognition.

[jweese]

Things I use every day: weather; baseball and football scores for teams I like; approximate time to home and traffic conditions from wherever I am

Things I use when the appropriate email arrives in my inbox: current flight schedules (plus approximate time to get to the airport); package tracking

One thing that totally surprised me: I had a reservation on OpenTable, and my phone buzzed with a notification that it was time to leave for the restaurant if I intended to make it on time

And to be honest, I haven't "done" anything to get this value. This is all information that arrives automatically. That is, Google determined automatically what I needed to know by indexing my email, my searches, and knowing where I am at all times. Make of that what you will.

[pavanky]

I don't drive or travel much. But the few times it has been insanely helpful is if you do travel and have no idea about places to visit / see while you are there.

[justincormack]

I saw little for a few months. The it started feeding in search based info. Recently if I am out late it suggests places to eat...

[pspeter3]

It comes when you use GMail and Google Calendar a lot. Having it let me know that I need to jump on Muni to make a date on time is a plus. The most mind blowing was when I went home, told me I needed to leave for the airport because of traffic, pulled up my boarding pass (United), and showed me what gate the flight was and any potential delays.

[adlpz]

It used to be an useless time to commute by car to home (and I used to take the train) and the weather thing. Until I went on vacation to Germany and it started popping places to see, German translating widgets and other goodness. Not that useful still, but I believe it can grow into something really useful and quick.

[pspeter3]

You can change the commute mode from driving to public transportation

[eli]

I'd imagine that works great in SF. The realtime public transit data Google has access to varies greatly city to city.

[adlpz]

As it's been said before, that works just on some locations. For the vast majority of the world (like in, geographically), Google Now is not that accurate or useful.

[stevejalim]

Set a work and home location so that it knows when you really are out and about. Start using G+ if you don't already (eg I got a birthday alert for someone yesterday, via Now, via G+). Set some data in other google applications (Calendar, Finance, etc). All roads lead to Now. (Well, some do)

[VLM]

Imagine how useful intelligently feeding google reader data into Now would be... oh wait, whoops. Aside from whining about Reader being cancelled I am serious that sniffing relevant RSS feeds would be a highly useful feature to add.

I've had it for a few months on my Nexus 7. In summary its travel and shopping push notifications. I had the usual intense short lived "oh that's really cool" reaction and haven't used it since then and its had no measurable impact on my life. Kinda like my relationship with facebook and linkedin and twitter.

In the eternal wheel of IT, where nothing is ever really invented, merely recycled every couple years, this is the reincarnation of the pointcast internet screensaver app from the mid 90s. Back then the complaint was it was spammy and didn't provide real value, so after a similar intense publicity wave quieted, they dried up and blew away with the wind, until now (literally, "Now", get the pun? Yeah well bad pun; bad puns never really go away just get recycled later...)

[alec]

I don't think it would be very useful to have RSS feeds in Google Now. I like Google Now because it tells me what I want to know right now, like that my flight is delayed or traffic is bad or here's how to get to that restaurant and you need to leave in 15 minutes. I don't want to know about a new article right now.

[VLM]

Perhaps. But the app has very little to say if you're not traveling or shopping. Personalized news would fit in with the "a push of personalized interesting stuff" model. On the other hand if its sticking to the "travel and shopping" model then I do agree news would be inappropriate.

[cocoflunchy]

You have cards for breaking news, and updates on stuff that you've searched Google News about (e.g. for the Boston bombing, I was getting regular updates on the situation. If you don't want to hear about it anymore, you can opt out easily.)

[toomuchtodo]

Agreed.

Google Reader = News Feed

Google Now = Life Feed

[notatoad]

the magic of google now is that you don't have to do anything. most of the time it just sits there quietly doing nothing, every now and then it informs you of something useful.

it's not like other apps where you have to decide if it's worth it to use google now or not. all you have to do is install it, and it will periodically be useful.