Take a bow, Google Now

It’s Techy Tuesday and I’m back on my schedule! Today, you get to meet Google Now!

I know I usually try writing about random apps that just do their thing in a little corner of the world, but today I’m taking a new approach.  Let’s talk about an app made by a company that doesn’t need advertising.  There are probably people in third-world countries that want electricity in their town so they can Google stuff. In fact, there are probably penguins in a fourth-world country (you know, Antarctica) that use their cute little flippers to Google how many feet of snow they’ll get today.

However, just because the world of people and penguins knows about Google doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone knows about the fun little features and apps that Google makes.  Maybe you’ve noticed recently (like within the past year, it’s not quite that recent), you can Google things like….”weather” and it’ll take your current location and return back the weather.  Or if you’re logged in to your Google account—the same email that you used to book a flight with United Airlines and they emailed you your confirmation itinerary—and you search “my flight.” A little card will pop up and tell you when your flight is and what the status is.  Those are the things that are integrated into the main Google website.  Google Now is like all of that, but personally for you on your phone.  It’s great.

When you first open the app, you sign in once and you’ll get this screen:

OK, Google

So it brings up just an average search screen with the weather of where you are right now.  Oh, I’m sorry. Did I say average?? Since when has anything Google done been categorized as “average.” I’m pretty sure they’re known for their simplistic and subtle ways of going above and beyond.  What is it that makes it above average, you ask? Alright try this: once you’re at that screen….say, “OK, Google…”

I KNOW. HOW COOL, RIGHT?!?! For those of you readers that weren’t following along with me (tisk tisk, way to be bad students!), when you say “OK, Google,” it automatically detects it and turns on voice command and you can tell Google whatever you want! Google seriously is on top of their game here.  I was just playing around with a bunch of commands, and here are a couple things you can ask Google:

• What does __ mean?
• How do you say __ in __?
• What’s the weather outside?
• Where am I?
• Take me to work/home.
• Who’s playing football tonight?

The list goes on forever. It’s pretty sweet.  I noticed that when I was comparing Google Now versus Siri, Siri will actually give responses to silly questions, but Google is very serious and work-minded.  I guess that means Siri gets the fun and friendly point.

Then again, Google seems to understand me more and give me straight up answers.  Like if I ask who Aubrey Plaza is, Google will take me directly to her Wikipedia page.  Siri sometimes tends to just return Google results and be like, I think this is what you meant, right?! Can you find it yourself?? Thanks, Siri…  So, Google gets the smart boy point. (Side note for any Bollywood fans reading this… “Kuch sunai toh nahin diya, lekin Smart Boy zaroor kaha hoga!”  Bonus points if you know what movie that’s from!)

One of the cooler voice command features I use often is the “Remind me” feature.  Just tell Google “Remind me to….” do whatever whenever, and it’ll add a little reminder card to your home screen and send you a push notification when you tell it to! 🙂

P.S. – I’m pretty sure Android’s new OS Kit Kat has this OK, Google thing on at all times…like you don’t have to have any app open at all; you just have to talk to your phone!  I’m totally jealous of anyone that has the new Nexus 5. I want it soooo bad (but thanks to Verizon and Google not being friends, I don’t see that happening anytime soon) 😦

Google Cards

In order to help you organize all the fun informational things Google is keeping for you, Google Now keeps everything in little “cards” at the bottom of the start screen.  If instead of going into voice command you decide to scroll down, you can access all the cards Google has saved for you!  This is where you’ll have things like: your reminders, a card for weather, new Google results about recent Google searches you’ve made, and things like concerts and stuff that are around you.  I also noticed it told me when the next Bones episode would be airing since apparently I googled David Boreanaz at some point…

My favorite card is the Go Home/Work card. When I’m away from home, then my top card is always Go Home.  And it’ll tell me how far I am, what the traffic is like, and I can just tap the card to open and start Google Maps directions to take me home!  Because after all, there’s no place like home ❤

….Notice the excitement is mainly for when it takes me home. Not when it takes me to work, even though technically that is also an option.

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There are tons of cards that Google shows.  If you want to see an entire list, actually check out their site at http://www.google.com/landing/now/#cards.

Google Apps

Google Now also gives you access to a good number of their commonly used apps: like shown below. There’s not much really to say about these, but it definitely is a lot more convenient and quicker than opening up Safari and typing in docs.google.com, then waiting for forever for it to load.

All-in-all, Google Now is definitely a great app. Especialllllllllly (NOTICE THE MAJOR EMPHASIS) for Android users that don’t have Siri! Get Google Now. It’s great. I like it just as much as Siri. (Probably more, because of my ingrained mental Google bias.)

Google’s done a great job with Google Now.  And after such a great performance, Google, take a bow for Google Now! 🙂

Available for iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone! Click links to download.

Evernote-taking is Clever Notetaking

Hey, so sorry for the major delays.  It’s been a seriously tiring couple of weeks 😦

But FINALLY, I’m getting around to writing another post.  I’m so pumped about writing this article; I’ve been wanting to write about Evernote for about a month now when I asked my friend if he knew what Evernote was…..and HE SAID NO! WHAT?! Seriously. Everyone deserves to know about Evernote.

Evernote is pretty much the greatest notetaking/reminder/sharing-y thing you can think of. And every single time, they come up with something new to add! Seriously, I’d be SO out of ideas at this point.  Anyways, let’s get started.

First things first, can we talk about how adorable the icon is? Totally cute. Elephants are definitely some of the cutest animals out there.  Special shoutout to anyone who agrees with me ❤

Alright, so if you open up the app, you’re taken to your menu of notes.

And of course, you have options for your menu: like sorting by different properties, or viewing things as cards instead of as snippets.

You can add notes (which is the entire basis of the app). And there are lots of cool features and formatting stuffs as well.  You have all the average formatting, and alignment, highlighting.  It’s one of the reasons I used Evernote for taking notes in class.

Unfortunately a lot of the more helpful features were added later 🙂  But that’s still good news for you!

The Attachments

One of the sweeter features are the attachments you can add.  As you’ve probably guessed, tapping that iconic paperclip will take you to the magical menu of attachments!

Obviously the camera, saved photo, and even audio can be pretty standard, but document cameras aren’t found as commonly as the rest.  Also, they give you three types of “documents” that it can analyze: post-it notes, documents, and average photos.  Once the documents have been scanned in, Evernote makes all of them searchable as well.  Definitely making it easier to, you know, search through class notes. (THAT’S WHY THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN A GREAT FEATURE BEFORE!)  And, once they’re pictured and what not, you can add cute little annotations.

You have little arrows, highlighting, adding text, adding shapes, and you know that weird button on the top….WAIT UNTIL YOU HEAR. So……it’s to pixelate stuff. So you can blur out names or something! How cool, right! However, I guess that’s not that helpful for school notes…

Whatever. Close enough! Still an awesomely fun feature!

The Reminders

And the last feature: a quick one. A Reminder thing.  So, for example, if I feel like I’m going to forget to go to work tomorrow….

Then I can have my Evernote app remind me!  It could also send me an email in the morning on the day of my event!  Exciting stuff 🙂

Syncing Connections

One of the best things about Evernote is how everything is connected.  More than you think it is.  A couple posts ago, I talked about an app called Food.  That’s connected to Evernote.  You can access all of your notes from online on any computer.  All connected to Evernote.  And on top of all of that, there’s an extension for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera called Evernote Clearly.  (Sorry, IE users out there; you have nothing. But, in my opinion, you should just get a better browser.)

So what Evernote Clearly does is that it creates a distraction-free environment for reading….which with my ADD-ridden mind is pretty much what I need! Also, this extension is good for taking notes on readings, highlighting, and alllll of it is saved to my Evernote account!

And since that’s it for today, download and enjoy!

Hopefully the next update will be soon 🙂