Google Now widget prematurely revealed
The official Google Now page has spilled the beans an on upcoming feature for the predictive software found in Android 4.1+. According to a support page that has since been taken down, future incarnations of Now will feature homescreen widgets bringing information like weather and travel time to the forefront.
While the experience wasn’t detailed (for instance: the level of customizability we can expect), a Now widget helps to highlight info that seems, to this blogger at least, to be buried deeper within Android than such a keystone feature should be. Aside from notifications informing a user of new cards, accessing Google Now has always seemed rather unintuitive. Launching into the app by tapping a widget providing a quick overview of card info, that’s much better.
No word on when we can expect the new widget. It could come as part of an overall OS update (and if that wasn’t 4.2.2 it will likely have to wait for Key Lime Pie), but could also arrive as part of a direct update to Google Now. We’ve had our gripes with the service in the past, but Google is slowly rounding it into shape, bringing it closer to their vision of Now in everyday life.
[via Engadget]