AppleInsider Staff
Search giant Google on Friday revealed that it will allow select Android apps to integrate with Google Now — Â the company's answer to Apple's Siri digital assistant — allowing users of services like AirBnB, Pandora, and Lyft to pull that data into Now.
Each of the new apps will be allowed to present context-sensitive information in the form of a Now card, rather than relying on system notifications. Pandora could surface music recommendations during users' commuting time, for instance, while Lyft might populate a card for ordering a ride when the user arrives at an airport.
Google product manager Aparna Chennapragada said in a blog post that the new cards would be made available over the "next few weeks." There is no word on when, or if, Google will open up Now to the general population of developers or bring the features to its iOS app.
The full list of new Now partners includes AirBnB, Instacart, Pandora, Shazam, Lyft, TripAdvisor, Kayak, eBay, Walgreens, Ford, Waze, Strava, Duolingo, Mint, The Economist, The Guardian, Bellyflop, Coinbase, Redfin, Zillow, Life360, HootSuite, Wattpad, Runtastic, Delivery Hero, Hailo, mytaxi, busuu, ESPN, Housing, Meru Cabs, Shaadi, The Economic Times, CookPad, SmartNews, Suumo, BookMyShow, and Lincoln.
Apple has long been rumored to be considering expanding the Siri API, though such a change has yet to materialize. The company did add a number of new features to Siri in iOS 8, including integration with Shazam.
Malcolm Owen
Christine McKee
Andrew Orr
William Gallagher
71 Comments
Allowing services to "pull" data into Now - sounds more like "push" to me. More targeted advertising services from the big G. Sapping up bandwidth.:no:
I've got to say that I would love for Siri to become a more powerful assistant. I'm trusting that Apple is taking it's time either to focus on making other things in the ecosystem better or working on bringing a huge bang for the iPhone 6S and future Macs.
Google Now is nothing like Siri and should not be described as a competitor to it.
Siri for the Mac would be amazing!
[quote name="RobM" url="/t/184597/google-announces-40-new-third-party-integrations-for-siri-competitor-google-now#post_2669237"]Allowing services to "pull" data into Now - sounds more like "push" to me. More targeted advertising services from the big G. Sapping up bandwidth.:no:[/quote] I'm going to go out on a limb and predict Google will pull data FROM the application requests.