Josh Hendrickson
Arguably one of the best parts about smartphones is the apps you can install to do more. But sometimes it’s inconvenient to unlock your phone and touch the screen to control them. If you’re on Android, there’s good news for you: you can now control many apps with your voice, and more apps are coming.
That’s right, now you can use voice commands like, “Hey Google, order a smoothie on Postmates,” and if you have the Postmates app installed, your phone will walk you through the process. All without having to get your grubby fingers on your screen.
You’ll need an Assistant-enabled Android phone, sorry folks who made Alexa the main assistant. And you’ll need the relevant apps installed on your phone too. To start, the new Hey Google feature works with over 30 apps, and Google promises more are coming.
Right now, that list includes Spotify, Twitter, Postmates, Walmart, Snapchat, MyFitnessPal, and more. What you can do depends on the apps themselves, but the commands are sensible enough.
You can say, “Hey Google, find Motivation Mix on Spotify,” for instance, or “log a berry smoothie on MyFitnessPal.” And if you frequently use a particular command, you can create shortcuts to make the command even easier to use. For instance, instead of saying, “Hey Google, when is my Walmart order arriving?” you could create the shortcut “Hey Google, Walmart status.”
The new feature is rolling out today, so if you have a recent Android phone with Assistant enabled, give it a try.
Source: Google
