Google today announced new automation and web features coming to Google Assistant for Android and iOS, with the most notable feature for Apple users being the ability to locate a lost iPhone using the digital assistant.
Android users have long been able to use the Google Assistant to trigger a sound for their smartphone if it got lost. That same ability, much like Apple's own Find My system, is coming to the iPhone. The feature will let users who have a Google Assistant-enabled smart speaker and the accompanying Google Home app for iOS find a misplaced device.
The alert is triggered when asking "Hey Google, find my phone" through a Google smart home devices. Following the trigger, the Google Home app will send an iOS critical alert on the iPhone. Apple offers apps the ability to utilize critical alerts, which are special notifications that can break through Do Not Disturb, or silent mode, to ensure they reach the user. Apps with critical alerts require special approval from Apple, and Google seems to have obtained that approval.
Additional features coming to the Google Assistant app include "Assistant Routines," which Google says will make it easy to perform multiple actions at once with a single command automatically, and a Duplex update that makes ordering takeout and delivery easier with partner restaurants.
The comments here are fuggin exhausting... What does sending an alert to your phone? have to do with tracking? Nothing in the least. This feature doesn’t require/nor make use of tracking. Idiots... Sure everything else does, just stay on point ppl...
The Connectivity Standards Alliance, which includes major tech companies like Apple, Amazon, and Google, today announced the launch of "Matter," a new interoperable, secure connectivity standard designed for smart home devices.
Formerly known as "Project CHIP," Matter is a unified IP-based connectivity protocol that will be used to build and connect Internet of Things ecosystems. It is...
Google today announced several new features coming to Google Maps for iOS and Android this year, including a brand new "Live View" mode that uses AR for navigation inside malls and airports.
Live Mode aims to prevent customers from the "awkward moment when you're walking in the opposite direction of where you want to go" by providing directions in AR, right in the app. Google says the new...
Thursday February 11, 2021 11:09 am PST by Sami Fathi
Google has rolled out a suite of new video editing features for Google Photos on iOS that adds granular controls for editing things such as brightness, contrast, and exposure. In addition to the fine-tune controls, users will now have the ability to crop, change the perspective, and add filters to videos directly within the app.
In September, Google announced a redesigned editor for Google ...
Wednesday May 19, 2021 1:00 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Google Photos is getting a new AI-driven feature that can take two similar pictures in your iPhone's camera roll and turn them into a single moving shot, reports The Verge.
Google says the feature achieves this by using machine learning to generate additional frames between the two images, which creates the appearance of movement.
If you've taken several shots in succession, for example,...
Wednesday February 10, 2021 4:24 am PST by Sami Fathi
Google today announced that "Google News Showcase," a new style of displaying the news within the Google and Google News mobile apps and website, has launched in the UK and Argentina, following an Australian rollout last week.
Google says News Showcase offers participating publishers the chance to provide more context for stories such as through bullet points and timelines, and it has plans...
For as long as it's existed, Google Photos has offered free unlimited storage for uploading images at a reduced yet good enough quality for most users. From June 1, 2021, however, all photos and videos uploaded to Google accounts will count against users' cloud storage. If you've been relying on Google to back up your media library, it may be time to move that content elsewhere. This article...
A judge in California has ruled that Google must face a class action lawsuit alleging that it secretly tracks the online activity of Chrome users even when they're using the browser in its privacy-oriented Incognito mode (via Bloomberg).
The lawsuit was filed in June by three plaintiffs alleging that Google hoovers up user data through Google Analytics, Google Ad Manager and other applications ...
Apple with iOS 14 introduced App Privacy labels for App Store apps, which are designed to let customers know details about the data that an app will collect about them before they make the decision to install an app.
Google is planning to follow in Apple's footsteps with the Play Store, introducing a new feature that will require developers to provide transparency into how apps are using...
Wednesday January 20, 2021 12:46 pm PST by Juli Clover
As of December 8, Apple has been requiring developers submitting new apps and app updates to provide privacy label information that outlines the data that each app collects from users when it is installed.
Many app developers, such as Facebook, have complied and now include the privacy labels alongside their apps, but there's one notable outlier -- Google.
Google has not updated its major ...
Friday February 12, 2021 7:59 pm PST by Eric Slivka
Google today finally updated its YouTube iOS app for the first time in over two months, becoming one of the highest-profile Google apps to see an update since early December when Apple began requiring that developers disclose privacy practices for each of their apps in order to have their updates approved. Most of Google's apps have yet to be updated since the requirement went into effect,...
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Sure everything else does, just stay on point ppl...