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Google Now

Z

Zurginator

Gawd
Joined
Nov 16, 2009
Messages
867
So, out of those of you with a Nexus or anyone with a JB ROM, what are your thoughts on Google Now?

I'm rather impressed myself, despite how little it has to show me (I don't follow sports, don't fly, etc).

Got off work today and it gave me an estimated travel time though, and that just blew me away --- this is only my second day running JB.
 
Yeah, I was surprised too when it popped up with a notice giving an estimated time till my next appointment with the travel time factored in.
 
It's nifty, the traffic piece is about all I use currently
 
Zurginator said:
So, out of those of you with a Nexus or anyone with a JB ROM, what are your thoughts on Google Now?

I'm rather impressed myself, despite how little it has to show me (I don't follow sports, don't fly, etc).

Got off work today and it gave me an estimated travel time though, and that just blew me away --- this is only my second day running JB.
Click to expand...

It's now available for ICS as well as a custom apk
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=28186680&postcount=1
 
It pretty cool but I have no real use for it.

What annoys me the most is that if I google some place on my computer, my phone will know about it and tell me about the traffic for going to that place...
 
ripken204 said:
It pretty cool but I have no real use for it.
Click to expand...
I don't either. It's great in theory but I quit using it a week after the update.

What annoys me the most is that if I google some place on my computer, my phone will know about it and tell me about the traffic for going to that place...
Click to expand...
I have the opposite problem. It won't update my drive times to anywhere important. It constantly show me the time to get home and that's about it. For some reason it never updates that I've arrived home and constantly shows the route estimates. It's to the point where I've programmed in my home address as places I need updates to most frequently.
 
ripken204 said:
What annoys me the most is that if I google some place on my computer, my phone will know about it and tell me about the traffic for going to that place...
Click to expand...

You can change that in the Google Now settings.
 
I've been showing off Google Now to quite a few people but as far as actual usage, I don't know if I'd end up using it on a consistent basis. At least, for now.
 
skizzled said:
I've been showing off Google Now to quite a few people but as far as actual usage, I don't know if I'd end up using it on a consistent basis. At least, for now.
Click to expand...
It has potential but they're a few updates away from that IMO. They need to get calendar integration set up without the use of that funky text number before it is of any use to me.
 
just put JB on my nexus s 4g the other day, only got one card for the weather.

How do I make it do all this cool stuff you guys talk about???
 
It does alot of it on its own, for traffic to places you are going, just have the adress in your calendar
 
kilik64 said:
just put JB on my nexus s 4g the other day, only got one card for the weather.

How do I make it do all this cool stuff you guys talk about???
Click to expand...

When you first opened Google Now did you opt into the location and search history? Without those tracking features Now is pretty useless.
 
I've been running Now since JB roms were first released after I/O and havent found it super useful. It will tell you when you need to leave in order to make an appointment on time, which is neat. I wish that the voice commands were more powerful (greater variety of voice commands) or there was a greater variety of cards. I don't find it providing me a whole lot of extra stuff that I've found especially helpful. The other thing is that it definitely has an adverse effect on battery since it has the GPS running a lot more.
 
Activate: AMD said:
I've been running Now since JB roms were first released after I/O and havent found it super useful. It will tell you when you need to leave in order to make an appointment on time, which is neat. I wish that the voice commands were more powerful (greater variety of voice commands) or there was a greater variety of cards. I don't find it providing me a whole lot of extra stuff that I've found especially helpful. The other thing is that it definitely has an adverse effect on battery since it has the GPS running a lot more.
Click to expand...

You can disable the location tracking and the google now portion and just have the new voice comands. The location tracking is actually in the maps app. Its under automatically update location. I think this worked this way in older os's too.
 
Activate: AMD said:
The other thing is that it definitely has an adverse effect on battery since it has the GPS running a lot more.
Click to expand...

It doesn't use GPS. You can check what's using your battery by going to settings->battery and taking a look. There are also apps like Better Battery Stats in the play store.

If you have Google's search history enabled you'll get some more interesting stuff going on - potentially, anyway. I did a search for a store on my desktop, and when I hopped in my car Google Now had a card offering to navigate their - it was pretty awesome.

If you are one of the paranoid "No, Google tracking is evil!" types, then Now won't really do anything for you, sorry. That tracking people around here love to vilify is what enables Now to work the best.
 
blackhand1001 said:
You can disable the location tracking and the google now portion and just have the new voice comands. The location tracking is actually in the maps app. Its under automatically update location. I think this worked this way in older os's too.
Click to expand...
Yea i know, I'm not saying its not really worth it, just that it happens

kllrnohj said:
It doesn't use GPS. You can check what's using your battery by going to settings->battery and taking a look. There are also apps like Better Battery Stats in the play store.

If you have Google's search history enabled you'll get some more interesting stuff going on - potentially, anyway. I did a search for a store on my desktop, and when I hopped in my car Google Now had a card offering to navigate their - it was pretty awesome.

If you are one of the paranoid "No, Google tracking is evil!" types, then Now won't really do anything for you, sorry. That tracking people around here love to vilify is what enables Now to work the best.
Click to expand...
I do use Better Battery Stats and maps has started taking up a lot more battery ever since I enabled the location tracking for Google Now. How do you think it calculates your drive times to your commuting locations? Or checks for local spots? Or looks up transit times when you're near a train station? If you don't think its using GPS for all of this stuff you're delusional. Google Now as an application might not be the one waking the GPS per battery stats, but its utilizing map data to generate those cards. And if you're moving around a lot during the day, it checks GPS even more frequently. I'm not a "no-track" paranoid, I'm just saying that if you want all the goodies from Google Now, be prepared to take a hit to battery life
 
My battery life hasnt dramatically declined .... It uses both GPS as well as wifi location - I probably dont notice a difference because I have weather bug ping my location via GPS on the hour to give me weather for where I actually am...
 
Activate: AMD said:
Yea i know, I'm not saying its not really worth it, just that it happens


I do use Better Battery Stats and maps has started taking up a lot more battery ever since I enabled the location tracking for Google Now. How do you think it calculates your drive times to your commuting locations? Or checks for local spots? Or looks up transit times when you're near a train station? If you don't think its using GPS for all of this stuff you're delusional. Google Now as an application might not be the one waking the GPS per battery stats, but its utilizing map data to generate those cards. And if you're moving around a lot during the day, it checks GPS even more frequently. I'm not a "no-track" paranoid, I'm just saying that if you want all the goodies from Google Now, be prepared to take a hit to battery life
Click to expand...
Google Now only uses GPS when you have it turned on.
http://support.google.com/nexus/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2665840

"Google Now also uses location information provided by Google’s location service and GPS, if those are currently turned on."
 
Blown 89 said:
Google Now only uses GPS when you have it turned on.
http://support.google.com/nexus/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2665840

"Google Now also uses location information provided by Google’s location service and GPS, if those are currently turned on."
Click to expand...
and those need to be turned on to have all the fun location-based things
look, I can bold things too!

This isn't a hard concept, all i was saying is that it WILL use GPS if you enable the goodies, and that WILL have an impact on your battery life. It wasn't super dramatic for me, but it took the maps application up from about 1-2% of my battery consumption at the end of the average day to between 5-15% depending on how frequently I move around. My battery life is perfectly fine as is, but its something to consider if you really need to eke out every last drop of battery life
 
Activate: AMD said:
and those need to be turned on to have all the fun location-based things
look, I can bold things too!
Click to expand...
You don't need GPS turned on for it to work.

This isn't a hard concept,
Click to expand...
No it is not. If you don't want GPS to drain the battery and still want this Google Now feature then disable the GPS. Battery drain isn't that bad with location based services as the only option. It's not that difficult. You said something stupid (see below) and now you're being an ass because you can't accept the fact that you were wrong. Stop being a jerk.

Activate: AMD said:
If you don't think its using GPS for all of this stuff you're delusional.
Click to expand...
 
Activate: AMD said:
I do use Better Battery Stats and maps has started taking up a lot more battery ever since I enabled the location tracking for Google Now. How do you think it calculates your drive times to your commuting locations? Or checks for local spots? Or looks up transit times when you're near a train station? If you don't think its using GPS for all of this stuff you're delusional. Google Now as an application might not be the one waking the GPS per battery stats, but its utilizing map data to generate those cards. And if you're moving around a lot during the day, it checks GPS even more frequently. I'm not a "no-track" paranoid, I'm just saying that if you want all the goodies from Google Now, be prepared to take a hit to battery life
Click to expand...

It uses cell tower location, which is passive. It doesn't use the GPS. You can tell quite easily with either of the following two methods:

1) Note that the GPS indicator never comes on

2) Go look at your location data and observe how course it is: https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0

It has an impact to battery life, sure - it communicates with a server after all. But not from GPS, since it doesn't use that.
 
Blown 89 said:
You don't need GPS turned on for it to work.

No it is not. If you don't want GPS to drain the battery and still want this Google Now feature then disable the GPS. Battery drain isn't that bad with location based services as the only option. It's not that difficult. You said something stupid (see below) and now you're being an ass because you can't accept the fact that you were wrong. Stop being a jerk.
Click to expand...
You still don't get what i'm saying. I'm not even complaining about the battery life hit, I know you can turn gps off and still have Now on, but the finer data definitely helps increase its usefulness. I get bus-stop info when i'm in town near a bus stop with GPS on, but not with it disabled because cell-triangulation is insufficient. I haven't said anything wrong, you're just being too damn thick to get it.
kllrnohj said:
It uses cell tower location, which is passive. It doesn't use the GPS. You can tell quite easily with either of the following two methods:

1) Note that the GPS indicator never comes on

2) Go look at your location data and observe how course it is: https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0

It has an impact to battery life, sure - it communicates with a server after all. But not from GPS, since it doesn't use that.
Click to expand...
The GPS indicator has definitely been more active since turning fine location on with Google Now than it ever was in ICS. Case in point - on a daily basis with JB and google now, maps has the gps on for 20-30 minutes. ICS almost never had it on. In both cases location services were on and latitude was turned off. In my experience, JB with google now enable is much quicker to go to GPS to update location
 
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