How would you feel of Apple's version of Google Now?

[pmontanarella]

A few months ago Apple bought an app called Cue that was something similar to Google Now. It is speculated that this move was in order to make a Google Now competitor for iOS (iOS 8?). I think it would be cool if it worked something like this:

• Scan iCloud email for Flight info/Tickets/Upcoming Trips
• Scan Calendar for appointments
• Take Data from Stock and Weather apps
• Possibly even track your Google/Yahoo/Bing searches in Safari on your iOS devices and Macs in order to do something similar to Google Search History.

I personally think something like this could have great potential on the iPhone and could prove to be really helpful for many iPhone customers. Furthermore, given the fact that Apple doesn't sell data for ads like Google, there shouldn't be Privacy concerns as there are for Google Now, and obviously this should also be opt-in. What do you guys think? Would you like to see something like this in a future version of iOS? Would you use a feature like this? Do you currently use Google Now at all?

I'd love to hear your opinions

Pietro

 

[csixty4]

For a preview of where Apple might go with something like his, check out Tempo. It's a smart calendar/contact manager by the same company that created Siri and it already does some of the things you're suggesting.

I could see Apple buying this app too once it matures a bit more.

 

[pmontanarella]

For a preview of where Apple might go with something like his, check out Tempo. It's a smart calendar/contact manager by the same company that created Siri and it already does some of the things you're suggesting.

I could see Apple buying this app too once it matures a bit more.

Hadn't heard of it. Definitely looks like a start. Hopefully, as you said, Apple will notice!

 

[Rigby]

Having played around with (and lost interest in) Google Now on my work Android phone for a while, I'm not convinced it's all that useful. One of the problems is that the predictive assistant functionality only works well if it has access to *all* your information, since otherwise it will miss things and you cannot rely on it. However, at least for me this is neither feasible nor desirable. For example, my work email and calendar are hosted on corporate servers and they will never be opened up for scanning by external companies like Apple or Google. I also explicitly try to diversify the services I use across multiple providers, since I don't really want all my info in the hands of a single company.

Besides, Apple is already doing some of this stuff anyway. Siri is an obvious competitor to Google Now's personal assistant, we have context aware features like tracking "frequent locations", the today screen etc. About the only thing they are not doing (yet) is scanning your email.

Regarding Google "selling data for ads", I'm not convinced that Apple isn't doing the same thing or will be in the near future. They are already receiving significant revenue from iAd, and they are apparently working on a realtime bidding system for advertisers similar to the one Google is operating. I'm pretty sure they will use some of your data to better target iAds if they are not already doing it, simply because it will allow them to sell iAds more effectively.

 

[Bear]

As long as it was optional, it might not be bad except it should be with no search history.

The search history would mean that Apple has to get in the way of all searches and that could actually break things every time a search engine changes something. And given that if I search for the same thing a few days apart I can get wildly different results, a search history isn't very good.