Photo: Google
Google has recently announced that Google Assistant would be updated with support for third-party apps, essentially providing users with a more advanced and personalized experience.
More specifically, Google has joined forces with the developers of the 30 most downloaded apps on the Google Play Store to add deeper Assistant integration, and these include Spotify, Snapchat, Twitter, and others.
“People do a lot more with their apps beyond simply opening and searching within apps, and we want to enable voice commands to those frequent tasks, too,” Google explains.
“Now you can do things like playing music, starting a run, posting on social media, ordering food, paying back a friend, hailing a ride—the list goes on and on—all with just your voice. Starting today, you can try doing more using your voice with more than 30 of the top apps on Google Play available in English globally, with more apps coming.”
Since Google Assistant is an essential part of the experience behind the wheel, this new announcement is big news for Android Auto users too.
Several of the apps that are getting deeper Assistant integration are already available on Android Auto, and this obviously opens the door to more advanced hands-free interaction when driving. For example, in Spotify, Google Assistant will let you start playing specific mixes and playlists, all by simply saying “Hey Google, open Motivation Mix on Spotify.”
Needless to say, this Google Assistant update also allows drivers to do more with voice commands behind the wheel. For example, with improved support for voice commands, apps could end up being able to post new content (such as Twitter or Snapchat), log an activity (in activity tracking tools like MyFitnessPal), or even search for products in online stores, though this obviously isn’t recommended behind the wheel.
Google will also allow users to create custom shortcut phrases for all of these, so for example, if you want to play a specific mix on Spotify, you can just configure the command to be something like “Hey Google, let’s get the party started.”
“People do a lot more with their apps beyond simply opening and searching within apps, and we want to enable voice commands to those frequent tasks, too,” Google explains.
“Now you can do things like playing music, starting a run, posting on social media, ordering food, paying back a friend, hailing a ride—the list goes on and on—all with just your voice. Starting today, you can try doing more using your voice with more than 30 of the top apps on Google Play available in English globally, with more apps coming.”
Since Google Assistant is an essential part of the experience behind the wheel, this new announcement is big news for Android Auto users too.
Several of the apps that are getting deeper Assistant integration are already available on Android Auto, and this obviously opens the door to more advanced hands-free interaction when driving. For example, in Spotify, Google Assistant will let you start playing specific mixes and playlists, all by simply saying “Hey Google, open Motivation Mix on Spotify.”
Needless to say, this Google Assistant update also allows drivers to do more with voice commands behind the wheel. For example, with improved support for voice commands, apps could end up being able to post new content (such as Twitter or Snapchat), log an activity (in activity tracking tools like MyFitnessPal), or even search for products in online stores, though this obviously isn’t recommended behind the wheel.
Google will also allow users to create custom shortcut phrases for all of these, so for example, if you want to play a specific mix on Spotify, you can just configure the command to be something like “Hey Google, let’s get the party started.”
Google News