Taking Strides to Compete with Siri and Become Your Assistant

Google is hoping to corner a bigger section of the mobile search market with big changes to their mobile search UI including the addition of a 'Voice Assistant' and the release of Google Now (a combination of what your phone knows about you to allow it to guess what you may want) for Android users.

Google wants to improve their voice search with the addition of a Siri-like assistant. The voice is not triggered to read all results but seems to be most often used when looking for specific answers to questions such as a phone listing for a business or a sport's score.

With the announcement of Google Now, Google hopes to become integral in helping you in every day tasks using search. It combines your location, calendar events and time of day to anticipate what you may be searching for. An example that Google provided was that if you're driving to work Google Now may assist you in giving you alternate routes if there's a traffic jam or even provide the closest place for a quick bite to eat. You use the touch screen on your Android phone to scroll through the Google Now results and if you're not interested in them they can be removed with a swipe and you'll be returned to the regular mobile results.

Hard to say how long it will take for these changes to become fully integrated and adopted by users but they look promising. To check out what Google has to say regarding Google Now watch their short 1 minute video below.