Google I/O, which was held back in May 2018, announced a couple of new features like notes integration and Pretty Please for the Google Assistant. Google has finally started rolling out the update to mass public with additional features as well.
The biggest feature in the update is Pretty Please which is heavily inspired by Amazon’s Alexa. It was felt that talking to faceless assistants was affecting the behavior of children. So to ensure that their attitude is not negatively impacted by virtual assistant such features are added.
The idea behind Pretty Please is to make Google Assistant more family friendly. It rewards the user when it is asked to do things politely and respectfully. So when you use words like “please” and “thank you”, it will appreciate your gesture and might respond to you by saying “Thanks for asking so nicely.”
Google Assistant can finally create notes and lists. The feature that was announced at Google I/O will soon support 3rd party note apps like Google Keep, Any.do and Todoist. You’ll be able to say several things including “add apples to my shopping list”, “Show me my last note”, and “What’s on my to-do list?”
Google is upgrading the Smart Display with a couple of new features as well. These include lyrics support for select songs when played with Google music and Broadcast Replies. Broadcast Replies allows communication between Google Home and Google smart hub devices. Users will be able to reply by keyboard and see the entire transcript of the message. Other features include sharing photos with contacts and integration with Nest Hello allowing communication with people on the door. Google Assistant has also gained the ability to read along with a book.
Last but not the least, now you’ll be able to call Santa by saying “Hey Google, Call Santa.”
