Mickey Mellen

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Why Google Now has amazing potential

A few years ago, I told +Ali Green about an idea I had; an app that would consistently check the traffic for you and tell you what time you needed to leave the house to make it to work on time.  It was a fun idea, but I never did anything with it.  Now Google has taken that idea and gone much further.

Check out the screenshot from my phone this afternoon.  I had an event that said "Mickey & Mariana: Dentist" on my calendar with the address in the "Where" field.  Google kept an eye on it for me, and let me know that I needed to leave in a few minutes to make it on time.  I never set up that reminder.

The phone knows where I am, where I need to be, what time it is right now, what time I need to be there, and what the traffic is along the route.  It's only logical to take this step, but it's pretty sweet that it's finally here.

For now it's a bit sporadic, as this card doesn't always show up, but as they tighten up the functionality in Google Now this feature (among many others) will be GREAT!
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12 comments
Ed Clem
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I can't wait to have this integrated.  It will be on the next phone I get!  My wife said she was concerned about Google having all this data on me.  I said I wasn't worried about that. Google already has all this info, they are just doing something useful with it for me now.
Christopher Knopick
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Agreed, I stayed up until 2 this morning rooting my phone and putting jelly bean on it just so that I could see how this works
Douglas Harry
 
This feature was available as a widget for maps in ICS. I am not sure if it was available in Gingerbread. I only noticed it and have been using it for about 6 months or so.
Mickey Mellen
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+Douglas Harry That was a neat feature, but for planned, fixed locations.  This just grabs whatever is on your calendar and lets you know when you need to leave.  Like +Ed Clem said, it's all just data that they already have, but they're getting more creative in their uses of it.
Vilmar Simson
 
For me the card kept hanging around. And send me to work despite not having it on my calendar. 
Definitely needs tweaking but like what I'm seeing so far
Mickey Mellen
 
+Vilmar Simson Yeah, it keeps asking me if I should set various places as my "daily commute" and there is no option to say "stop doing that, I have no daily commute". :)  Certainly imperfect, but the potential is insane.
Shane Mahon
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My phone noticed that I was away from home with family yesterday, and Google Now popped up a low priority notification giving me a route home with traffic info.
Adam Lorenz
 
So all I need to do is put an appointment with time and place in my calendar on ICS?
Adam Lorenz
 
Never mind. I did the research. I need Jelly Bean on my nexus to do this. Or port Now to ICS
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