Google’s Assistant actions for third party apps on the smartphone have been restricted to opening them only but now Google are bringing the ability to not just open but also search within all Android apps on your Assistant-enabled Android phone.
The new addition of searching third party apps is not all that is new though with voice commands able to now able to run frequent tasks as well. From playing music, starting a run, posting on social media, ordering food, paying back a friend to even hailing a ride the number of actions now supported by Assistant within third party apps is growing.
At this stage just over 30 of the top apps on Google Play are supported but more apps are coming — there is no word on just when they will arrive though. Within those 30 apps you can also create even shorter commands (or shortcuts) to run the more frequent tasks you may perform. For example, “Hey Google, tighten my shoes with Nike Adapt,” could be shortened with a shortcut to become “Hey Google, lace it.” To see your shortcuts or to create a new one you just need to of course ask your Assistant.
Hey Google, show my shortcuts
Google have not listed just which apps are available but it seems to support Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, TikTok, Spotify, Postmates, Discord, Etsy, Snapchat, Twitter, Uber, and more. Of course some of Google’s apps such as YouTube, Gmail and Maps are also supported.
Google have provided the information for third party developers to add this support to their apps so hopefully it won’t be too long before we see it rolling out as a standard feature to all the apps on our Android phones.
