The New IMessage Extension for the Google App Is Awesome
iOS: in Google Monday announced a major update of its application for iOS . If you only interact with Google on your iPhone by typing search queries into your browser’s address bar, the idea of installing a standalone “Google” app might seem a little odd. Do not worry about it.
Google’s updated app is n’t perfect – I’ll get back to that in a moment – but Google’s new iMessage extension now gives iPhone owners a good reason to grab the app and hide it deep in their iPhone folder. The color melted me.
The good: iMessage extension
When you install the Google app (or update it to the latest version), open iMessage and start a conversation. You should see a large, colorful “G” at the bottom of your iPhone screen. Tap it and now you can add all sorts of information, handpicked by Google, to your chats: the current weather; weather forecasts for the next six days; ratings, opening hours, addresses and phone numbers of nearby restaurants or points of interest; trending news or videos on YouTube; and gifs. Power is overwhelming .
When your friends click on content you’ve shared, such as a restaurant you want to meet later, they see the Google search results page for that location. (And yes, the old big AdWords result might be at the very top). If they click on the video, it also appears on a new screen and starts playing (thankfully, no audio). When you tap a GIF, the screen fills with an image and you can use the iOS sharing options to pass it on to others.
Bad: “Search in Google”
Google has also added a new feature that allows you to download related content for everything you view in your preferred mobile browser. On paper, this sounds convincing, but in practice it is not that useful, especially since it does not work well with Chrome for iOS.
The new “Search Google” option doesn’t appear in the iOS Actions menu by default – at least for me. I had to click More in the iOS Share Sheet and then turn on Google Search, just to try searching the relevant content. (This is not a breach of the transaction, just for your information.)
This function worked reasonably well in Safari. Assuming you’re looking at a typical web page and not a search result list or an image to name two examples, it’s very easy to get a list of related Google articles. If one of them piques your interest, you click on it and it appears in the browser you were using.
The same is true for Chrome on iOS, except for one important difference: clicking on the relevant article does nothing. No matter how many times I tried it, or how many different websites I tested it on, Chrome would not open any related articles I was trying to invoke. Fur.
(If you’re using Firefox for iOS, you won’t even see the Google Search option in your shared sheet. Sorry!)
Our Verdict: Take Google for iOS
Instead of using Google’s Google Search feature to find related content, it’s probably more convenient to just open a new tab and do more Google searches when your mind starts to wander. However, Google’s new iMessage extensions are incredibly useful and cost the seconds it takes to download the Google iOS app on your iPhone or iPad. You never have to use the app if you don’t want to, but you have a powerful iMessage tool that you can use to brag about the weather and shower your friends with cat gifs.