Google is in the middle of a revamp of its “Google Now” product. The new service, known as “Google Feed” is slowly rolling out to Android users.
Google Now was the card based service that provided content, navigation, and other proactive features to end users. The information appeared in a card based format and was part of the Google search app. Unfortunately, Google only rolled out the service to a limited number of countries. The Google Feed uses most of the same features, presented differently.
The first change you will notice is the tabbed interface. There are now three tabs: Home, Upcoming, and Recent. The Home tab is the news feed. You will see article recommendations on your interests, and search history. You can indicate a topic of interest by following tv shows and other topics from Google search. Google will use your search and browser history to show other articles you might find useful.
The Upcoming tab shows cards from your emails, reminders, calendar and other services to keep you abreast of your day. Users of Google Now will recognize most of the cards, that include reminders for meetings, travel times, package delivery details, etc. It is good to see Google trying something new with the Now interface, rather than retiring the service.
The Recent tab is a card based display of your recent search history. iPhone users will find the interface similar to the iOS recent app screen. It is unclear how useful this tab will be. Some users might not like the privacy implications of a listing their recent search queries appearing in an app.