Google Is Now on Tap

Just a few days ago, I called for my first Lyft ride. Nancy, who was the driver, wanted to put on her Pandora music, but had some trouble doing so as she fumbled and clicked around on her phone.

 

“Sorry, I can’t get my Pandora to play because I would have to exit my Lyft app in order to do so, and if I did that, the Lyft app would close,” she said.

 

She also went onto how Uber’s app is better because it allows her to go out the Uber app to pull up what she wants, and go back into it without it disconnecting. Is there a coincidence to why Uber is making a gross revenue of $10 billion and Lyft at $1.2 billion?

 

During last week’s Google I/O developer conference, Aparna Chennapragada, lead developer for Google Now, explained what the company’s vision of Now of Tap is.

 

“If a friend emails you about seeing the new movie ‘Tomorrowland,’ you can invoke Google Now without leaving your app, to quickly see the ratings, watch a trailer, or even buy tickets—then get right back to what you were doing,” Chennapragada wrote in a blog post.

To search, you just have to hold onto the home button, and then press back to exit the search and return to whatever you were doing.

 

This app is being built to cater to the user’s needs and allow them to receive contextual search information. It also works like Apple’s Siri, where you can ask who the singer of a song you’re listening to on Spotify is, make reservations and pull up restaurant reviews and menus it knows you’re looking for.

 

Nobody’s quite sure if Google will able to keep its promise on the functionalities, but if it were to, Google will be in a new playing field.