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Customize Google Now on iOS and Android OS

3 minute read

Google Now

This article is brought to you by Vaishnavi Agrawal.

Many hold the belief that Google Now is Google’s representative to rival Apple’s mobile assistant, Siri. The assumption has some factual basis in that they serve similar functions, but practically speaking, Google Now is a lot more than a simple personal assistant. It is more ambitious, articulated, and most of all uncomplicated in how it benefits your day to day life, by serving three core purposes –

• Saving you time by organizing information.

• Helping you make informed choices and decisions based on facts.

• Filtering information in a personalized way so that you can act on it intuitively.

In other words, you can use Google Now to preview weather, get reminded about a pending task, pre-schedule a meeting, quickly get in touch with people, and even get answers to basic questions (Who played Rose’s fiancé in Titanic?).

How does Google Now work?

Before you get started on Google Now, it is important for you to understand how it works. To provide the most helpful results, Google Now mines data from a combination of user-shared information. This information includes browsing history, location, reminders, shared content, calendar etc. The app’s algorithms relies heavily on this data to draw conclusions about your behaviour so it can present the best data to you when you need it, thereby saving you time and effort.

Setting up Google Now

If you are on iOS, you can download the application from the app store. If you are an android user, you already have it pre-installed. If it is not installed, you can find it in the Google Play store.

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After opening the app, you will want to customize the settings to best serve your needs.

On an Android device, open the menu on the left side of the screen. And tap the magic wand icon to start customize Google Now menu.

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In iOS tap on your profile picture in the top right hand corner of home screen of the app, select Google Now and select My Stuff.

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Once you are at the customize screen, you need to start off offering information about you. Choose your favorite sports, teams, stock, home and work address, even preferred method of transit and etc. The better and more managed data you input, expect better service and results from Google.

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If you have properly installed Google Now, and given it a week’s time to understand your behavior; you will start getting the amazing personalized results.

Things that you can do with Google Now:

• Plan and keep track of travel

• Shop online, in-store

• Stay updated on movies, TV shows

• Get tickets for upcoming events

• Get reminders about an event

• Voice search

• Search photos

There are many different things that you can do with the help of Google Now app. Think of it as a personal assistant that understands you better, provided you give it time.

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