Google Now to allow custom voice actions
In the past, if you wanted to complete an action with Google Voice other than the built in ones, you had to install applications like Commandr, set as a system service, and hope that you could send an intent to the application you wanted to do an action in.
Google announced yesterday that it has decided to extend the functionality of Google Now into the hands of app developers. What this means is, as long as the developer integrates it properly, that you can say commands like “OK Google, check me in on Yelp!” and the application will launch and take you to the check in option.
The idea is aimed at allowing specific commands to trigger actions in applications without all the functionality having to be present in the Google Now application. It will also hopefully remove some of the steps requires in order to make something actually happen.
Hopefully applications in the future will have a list of intent triggers somewhere in the app and Google Now will compile a list on the device of all applicable triggers into said app. I haven’t had too much time to pour over the specs but it looks like they’re currently asking developers to submit intent actions, which would probably render offline Google Now and app integration useless.
Hopefully it won’t be too long until you can just say “OK Google,” to wake up your phone followed by “claim my daily crystal in Marvel’s Contest of Champions,” and get your one-star Gamora without having to lift a finger.
There’s no stated date on when the new voice features will happen, but with how Google rolls these things out you can expect a couple of things to be working pretty soon while simultaneously introducing a bug that causes the draining the batteries of two of the leading smartphone manufacturers at an absurd rate, followed by a fix with no explanation, some mysterious updates to Google Play Services that cause some games to cease functioning, and then it’ll work flawlessly.
[Google+]
