[Onager1286]

I just saw this excellent article pop up on Paul Thurrott's site:

http://winsupersite.com/mobile-devic...medium=twitter

I haven't used Google Now at all, so I have to take what I read about it with a grain of salt, obviously. However, it represents really interesting functionality that I wish Windows Phone had.

[arrowrand]

Google Now is pretty f'ing amazing. More useful, and helpful than I imagined it could be when I first heard about it.

[kmoth]

I'd really like to know how many Microsoft employees work on WP compared to Windows. It feels like they still haven't gone all in on Windows Phone.

[sirgrant618]

Yeah, I won't lie, feeling pretty bummed out about google now and how much better it is than anything currently offered on WP.

I will say that the thing that attracted me to WP is the UI, but the feature set of Android is very compelling. I just wish it weren't so ugly.

[a5cent]

Live tiles for android... only better.

How useful this is will depend entirely on where you live, but if that happens to be the U.S., yes, definitely awesome.

[Malcolm Clement]

I'd really like to know how many Microsoft employees work on WP compared to Windows. It feels like they still haven't gone all in on Windows Phone.

I feel the SAME way... Skype, a major talking point is still in shambles and preview mode months after the OS released... continued bugs with random restarts and battery drain, even after Portico, no communication from MS about these basic issues, COMMON and BASIC features missing and no mention of them coming... etc...

THEY HAVE $64 BILLION in CASH RESERVES.... do something with it... make your OS live up to your promises first, then the potential second...

The mobile market has proven how profitable it can be... Spend money to make money...

[sirgrant618]

Would anyone be interested in starting a thread to brainstorm how a Google now alternative would work? I started writing down ideas in a notebook (including how WP could actually obtain this information about you without being creepy) but I dont want my ideas to go to waste.

I'll make the thread if any of you are interested with my ideas so far. I'm really geeked-up about this!

[a5cent]

I'd really like to know how many Microsoft employees work on WP compared to Windows. It feels like they still haven't gone all in on Windows Phone.

A decade ago, Microsoft's mission statement was to put a PC in every home. Today, MS appears determined to bet everything on keeping it that way, and that will fail.

I think Microsoft is aiming for a top-down approach... it is as if they want to sell tablets and smartphones as accessories to laptops and desktops, but consumers aren't perceiving things that way. Laptops and desktops are fine, they aren't going away (post-PC nonsense), but it is increasingly smartphones that frame the window to peoples digital presence, not full blown computers. If Microsoft wants to remain relevant in the consumer space, they need to finally realize they are fighting on the wrong battlefield.

They seriously need to let Windows be Windows and put most of those engineers behind WP for a few development cycles... the staff involved with WP and WP/W8/XBox integration needs to quadruple.

@Microsoft:
Go big or go home... a home without Windows.

[Optimus82]

Google Now is like my personal concierge... in a way.

At first I was thinking its just a siri competitor but as it turns out, it is so much more than a voice assistant. Heck I rarely use the voice search function. Never did when it was just plain old google search.

These cards that show up really surprise you sometimes. When I first started to use GNow, while at the grocery store I looked at my notifications and I saw that i had something telling me how long it would take to go home. Crazy. From there you can choose to navigate.

It even knew what grocery store I was at(publix) and left me a card asking if I wanted to do some product research.

At first it doesn't really show much in terms of location based info but it learns and in time you will get notifications\cards. I work from home but I have my daughters school set as a work destination. Over time it learned that I travel to and from my daughters school twice a day and gnow will show me traffic cards when its time for me to leave home\school

Google now was the reason I went back to android. Hopefully microsoft upps the usefulness of their search app. I think its already fine for a basic search tool but something to really compete with gnow.

[ben55124]

Glance-able information just got leap-frogged by contextual info. Next thing you'll see is Now sensing that you are at a Smoked by WP event, hearing the challenge, and automating the solution.

[tekhna]

Would anyone be interested in starting a thread to brainstorm how a Google now alternative would work? I started writing down ideas in a notebook (including how WP could actually obtain this information about you without being creepy) but I dont want my ideas to go to waste.

I'll make the thread if any of you are interested with my ideas so far. I'm really geeked-up about this!

Google Now works because of how insanely tied together Google's services are. As I posted in another thread, I googled a band I was interested in on my desktop while signed into Google; a couple weeks later a card popped up in Google Now telling me they were playing in my city, and offering me options to buy tickets. The Google ecosystem is what makes it possible. I'm not sure if Microsoft's fragmented services could be brought together in such a seamless way. Would be pretty cool though.

[a5cent]

The Google ecosystem is what makes it possible. I'm not sure if Microsoft's fragmented services could be brought together in such a seamless way. Would be pretty cool though.

"Fragmented" isn't even close to the correct technical term for what you are trying to describe. "Isolated" is likely closer.

Anyway, there is nothing preventing MS from replicating your band-search and ticket-offer experience on WP. That involves nothing but the search engine. What MS couldn't / wouldn't do is surface that ticket offer based on an e-mail you wrote. If that is what you are after, then yes, Google has an advantage in that area.

[snaqvi91]

I have a nexus 7 but don't use Google now, but find it to be just a gimmick.

[sravanv]

Would anyone be interested in starting a thread to brainstorm how a Google now alternative would work? I started writing down ideas in a notebook (including how WP could actually obtain this information about you without being creepy) but I dont want my ideas to go to waste.

I'll make the thread if any of you are interested with my ideas so far. I'm really geeked-up about this!

I would be interested in talking about it! I think Microsoft would want to follow in Google's footsteps and develop a Google Now-like product that would integrate all of the activities that can be done on WP8 and feed it into Bing. They have a great opportunity. They also have alot of services that Google may not necessarily have...yet...

[sravanv]

I have a nexus 7 but don't use Google now, but find it to be just a gimmick.

It is pretty useful. In fact, with the new Motorola X phone that's rumored to come out, I might give up on my dream to stay with Nokia.

Take a look at the various Google Now cards. They just recently updated it and included even more cards than before. Pretty powerful stuff!

[Blkacesvf41]

I have a nexus 7 but don't use Google now, but find it to be just a gimmick.

Not a gimmick at all. It's a very cool feature.

[tekhna]

"Fragmented" isn't even close to the correct technical term for what you are trying to describe. "Isolated" is likely closer.

Anyway, there is nothing preventing MS from replicating your band-search and ticket-offer experience on WP. That involves nothing but the search engine. What MS couldn't / wouldn't do is surface that ticket offer based on an e-mail you wrote. If that is what you are after, then yes, Google has an advantage in that area.

English fail.
1. A small part broken off or detached.
2. An incomplete or isolated portion; a bit: overheard fragments of their conversation; extant fragments of an old manuscript.
3. Grammar A sentence fragment.

[busngabb]

Not a gimmick at all. It's a very cool feature.

it's definitely a gimmick. I used google now for one thing only, telling me how long it would take to get home. It was pretty useful for that. For everything else it was utterly useless. Sure it knew which teams I supported and gave me scores, but I was always watching on tv or listening to coverage on the radio so it was useless.

Almost none of the cards work in the UK where I am either.

[Rioghalmo]

I had google now on my old nexus phone and i didn't use it. Maybe it is useful to some people but it never really was to me.

[tekhna]

it's definitely a gimmick. I used google now for one thing only, telling me how long it would take to get home. It was pretty useful for that. For everything else it was utterly useless. Sure it knew which teams I supported and gave me scores, but I was always watching on tv or listening to coverage on the radio so it was useless.

Almost none of the cards work in the UK where I am either.

So it's useless because it's not supported in your region?

[Malcolm Clement]

So it's useless because it's not supported in your region?

Just like Nokia Maps is pretty useless where I am. The US. The lack of accurate POIs makes it useless here.

Google Now is great in the US but not in the UK is what BUSNGABB was saying. And I'm saying that Nokia Maps may be great in other parts of the world but in North America, where I am, it is useless solely based on the fact that the POI database is terribly inaccurate.

[a5cent]

English fail.
1. A small part broken off or detached.
2. An incomplete or isolated portion; a bit: overheard fragments of their conversation; extant fragments of an old manuscript.
3. Grammar A sentence fragment.

Exactly. Also a technical fail.

MS' services were never broken off or detached from one another, as they never belonged to a single coherent whole. Being a fragment of something implies having belonged to an unfragmented whole at some point, which MS' individual services never did.

[Honestabebread]

I have a few phones with Google Now and its mostly useless.

[a5cent]

I have a few phones with Google Now and its mostly useless.

Even if you find the current implementation of Google Now useless (which may people in the world currently will), you must at least admit that they have the right idea, no? At least it does have the potential to be devastating to the competition if WP, iOS, etc. can't offer decent alternatives.

[Bee Mon]

"Putting aside the understandably troubling aspects of Google’s knowledge about you for a moment, Google Now is a revelation."??? Personally I find this creepy. I certainly do not want a HAL9000 monitoring and recording my every movement. If this is the way all smartphones are going, I'm going to dumb down back to a feature phone. I'd feel much safer. I doubt Microsoft would be allowed to do the same thing without getting sued for invasion of privacy.