It used to be that every new phone was heralded as “the iPhone killer.†Now the preoccupation is with “the Siri killer,†the app that will replace the sometimes frustrating Siri personal assistant on the iPhone.
The latest and most notable entry is Google Now, an app that anticipates what information you might want and puts it on your phone screen before you ask for it. Google Now has been on Android phones since June of last year, and it was added to the iPhone Google Search app last month.
It can seem wonderfully prescient or intrusively creepy, but there is an easy adjustment if you don’t like the feeling that Google is watching your every move.
Google Now guesses what you will want based on your Google searches, your Google calendar, where you are and things like travel confirmation messages in your Gmail account, among other things.
When I first went to Google Now on an iPhone, it showed me stock quotes for a company I recently looked up on my computer, gave me the local weather and recommended nearby restaurants. Curiously, it also showed me a map with directions that said it would take me 16 minutes to get home, even though I was already home.
It is no replacement for Siri, but it is something you might use in addition to Siri â€" if you aren’t creeped out knowing that Google Now is looking over your shoulder at everything you do online.
You can reduce that feeling, though.
To do so, go to the Google Search app and swipe your finger up from the bottom of the screen. That puts you in Google Now. Scroll to the last box and at the bottom you will see a little gear icon on the right. Touch it and you will see a list of Google Now categories, like weather, traffic, Gmail and sports. Those categories let you further manage what information it will give you.
For instance, touch “Sports†and it gives you the option of seeing posts before a game, during a game or after a game, or you can turn sports off entirely. You can also touch “Teams†and only get news of specific teams.
If managing the app seems like too much work, you can always just turn Google Now off entirely.
Of course, just because the app doesn’t tell you what it’s looking at anymore doesn’t mean it’s not looking.
