Google Handwrite launches for Android and iOS devices
Yesterday, Google launched a new service that improves upon its older standalone app, Gesture Search. Google Handwrite is a web-based application available for Android and iOS that lets you write out your various searches, rather than typing them using your device’s keyboard. To enable this service, just go to google.com on your mobile device, press the settings button in the upper right hand corner of the screen, and select the appropriate option.
What makes this different than Gesture Search? Well, for starters, you no longer need an individual app: it’s already available in your mobile browser. Google says it works best with Chrome for Android, but it also works in the standard browser on all iOS5+ devices, Android 2.3+ phones and Android 4.0+ tablets; it’s also compatible with 27 different languages.
I tried it out on my ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime, and it worked flawlessly. It does take a little while to get used to the fact that it only keeps one letter on the screen at a time. Also, it doesn’t really recognize cursive handwriting very well, but I didn’t really expect it to.
Google also released an informational video, available below, but needless to say, this is a really cool feature, and one I can definitely see myself using a lot in the future.
[Google]