Google has turned up the utility on its digital assistant. Google Now has been buffed with the inclusion of On Tap, an upcoming feature, arriving with Android M, that may be the biggest thing that was announced at the company's annual developers conference last week.
What makes Google Now On Tap such a big deal is the functionality it adds and the simplicity in which the feature is being implemented. On Tap looks for the most important word or phrase in any app and delivers more information about the subject via cards, all in app.
If there's a TV show mentioned in a text from a friend, for example, a Now On Tap user can tap and hold down his or her handset's Home button to pull up a digital card that provides a synopsis of the show and list a few key actors. Tapping and holding down the Home button is all that's required for Now On Tap to serve up more details about something in any app.
If a user wants to look into a subject that Now On Tap doesn't retrieve, Google Now is all ears for suggestions. Users need only say "OK Google," then ask the digital assistant to pull up information on a particular subject. That information will be delivered via a card.
If the cards aren't robust enough to handle all of the information that the user is seeking, Now On Tap also includes shortcuts to other apps that it feels are relevant. A user who is looking to invoke Now On Tap to find out more about a restaurant a friend mentioned in an IM will also receive a shortcut to Google Maps and Yelp and other relevant apps on the card, yes, all inside the application.
The simple, yet potent, feature was announced by Google's Aparna Chennapragada, director of product management, at a Google I/O session and later in a blog post:
"This is another way developers can get their apps in front of their users at the right moment, when an app is relevant to the task at hand. And best of all, developers don't need to do anything to integrate with Now on tap as long as they have their apps indexed by Google," Chennapragada stated.
