By JR Raphael
Ever have one of those moments where you see some new tech twist — an app, a feature, an idea of some sort — and you just stop in your tracks and think: "Whoa. Now, that's clever"?
I won't lie: Those moments come up far less frequently for me than they once did. By and large lately, we just haven't been seeing the same sort of awe-inspiring advancements in the mobile-tech arena that we did a decade ago. And most companies — Google very much included — are currently obsessed with chasing a very specific flavor of AI that's overhyped, frequently impractical, and awkwardly out of place in its present implementation.
You know what, though? If anything, that only makes those genuine "whoa" moments even more meaningful, when they do arrive — because they truly are a special surprise.
My friend, I had one of those moments this week. It brought me back to an era of Android when things were moving in an incredible direction and the future felt rich with real-world, life-enhancing technological intelligence.
This time, the moment didn't come from Google. But it did come from a developer who's been a part of the broader Android ecosystem for ages now — and it feels like it's picking up on a brilliant but ultimately abandoned idea Google gave us many moons ago.
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Google Now — and then
Before we dig into the present, we need to take a quick trip to the past. (It'll be fast. I promise!)
If you've been loitering around these Android-tinted lands for long, you no doubt remember: Back in 2012, Google gave us something that really felt like the future.
It was an Android-centric service called Google Now, and it was all about offering up predictive, contextual intelligence — info you needed, in other words, before you even realized you needed it.
I've been thinking about Google Now a lot lately, as Google joins the current tech circus of flailing around to force the square peg of generative AI into the round hole of our day-to-day lives. In many ways, it feels like the practical effect of Google Now well over a decade ago was much more advanced and aligned with our real-world needs than what Google's Gemini chatbot is giving us today.
In case this isn't a ringing a bell, the core interface of Google Now was a stream built into your Android device's home screen. That stream showed you a series of cards that'd change based on where you were, what you were doing, and what was going on around you — so you might see anything from a basic weather forecast to info about the current traffic to a place you typically visit at that specific day and time.
Google Now had the ability to make our lives easier — and it had the potential to set Android apart in a meaningful way that, if marketed effectively, could have really resonated with the masses. Google was years ahead of everyone else. And then — well, y'know. Google...Googled. It gave up on the concept before it had a chance to fully flourish and started chasing some other shiny new thing instead.
And that brings us to today.
Google Now — again
So here it is: With a recent update, a long-exceptional Android launcher app called Nova Launcher has added the concept of Google-Now-like cards into its app drawer.
Nova, like other Android launchers, replaces the home screen and app drawer of any Android device with a more customizable and feature-rich alternative. That means it's able to introduce options and abilities that Google itself (or Samsung, or any other Android device-maker) isn't pursuing. And this card setup is a perfect example of the interesting choices that sort of framework can offer us.
As of now, Nova's cards are fairly limited in what they can do. But they feel like the start of something special — and something pleasingly familiar, for those of us who remember the promise around Android's Google Now era.
At the moment, Nova's cards can you show three types of information:
Whatever cards you select then show up right at the top of your regular app drawer whenever the relevant moments arise:
It's almost an even more thoughtful arrangement than the separated Google Now feed of yesteryear, which typically required you to swipe over to the left of your main home screen panel. Nova's approach puts the same sort of info right into an area you're already accustomed to interacting with and transforms that typically static app drawer into an all-purpose action and information hub.
Clever of a concept as it may be, of course, it's an extremely limited start. What made Google Now so magical wasn't just the information it provided but the service's ability to surface exactly the right info at exactly the right time — before you even thought to ask for it.
That piece of the puzzle will be much more challenging for an app like Nova to achieve, given its much more limited insight into your assorted activities both online and off. Google Now, for instance, could know that you'd searched for a flight on your computer and then proactively show you a card with that flight's status info seconds later on your phone. It could remember that you'd looked up a business and then immediately pop up a card with directions to that business as well as current driving time and the most efficient route. And it could sense on its own what locations you were likely to visit on different days and times from your Android-associated location history instead of having to ask you to manually program those same schedules.
Nova may not ever be able to go quite that far, but it certainly has plenty of room to grow within its current confines. With the right device permissions, it could keep an eye on your calendar and then pull off the Google-Now-like feat of letting you know when you need to leave for an upcoming appointment in order to make it on time, based on both your location and current traffic conditions. It could give you up-to-the-minute info on public transportation anytime you approach a bus stop or train station. And with a teensy bit of manual input, it could watch anything from stocks to sports teams of interest and surface worthwhile updates at relevant times.
None of this is exactly simple, of course, and how deeply Nova invests in this concept and pushes the feature forward is something only time will tell us for sure.
But right now, I can tell you this: This feature feels packed with potential. It feels like a taste of the future we were once promised. It feels like a natural progression from the era of Google Now and something Google itself might have done, in a slightly different fork of reality.
And it absolutely feels like a "whoa"-worthy moment — one that has me eager to see where this takes us and excited about what could come next.
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