Google reportedly plans to bring voice commands across Android UI with new navigation buttons

Lately, the tech world is abuzz with plethora of rumors and speculations regarding Google’s future plans for its services and applications. The search engine giant is rumored to be prepping some notable UI changes in the next iteration of Android OS along with some enormous revamp in interface and in the functionality. If the rumors are to be believed, the upcoming changes could be the biggest change in the history of Android UI since Google opted for the software buttons with the Android 3.0 Honeycomb and Google Now with Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean.

Sunday, April 27, 2014

/ by Abhinaya

Lately, the tech world is abuzz with plethora of rumors and speculations regarding Google’s future plans for its services and applications. The search engine giant is rumored to be prepping some notable UI changes in the next iteration of Android OS along with some enormous revamp in interface and in the functionality. If the rumors are to be believed, the upcoming changes could be the biggest change in the history of Android UI since Google opted for the software buttons with the Android 3.0 Honeycomb and Google Now with Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean.

Ok Google Everywhere

As per an Android Police report citing inside sources, Google is planning to add the ‘Ok Google’ command and the voice based actions all over the Android platform. The report refers this concept as ‘Ok Google Everywhere’ and it is believed that this feature will let the users control various Google applications and third party ones as well using voice commands.

Presumably, this voice recognition feature would be something that is similar to always-on in the MotoX or could be some feature that will function only when it recognizes the user’s voice. Google is also speculated to add specific tasks for various apps such as replying to an email, sharing a snap from the gallery or anything using voice commands with the ‘Ok Google’ hotword.



Besides implementing enhanced voice control, Google is also said to be coming up with new navigation buttons such as the traditional home button will be replaced by a Google button. Also, it is tipped to completely modify the way users access the home screen with its new navigation bar. Note that this interface will likely be part of the Google experience, and as such may not appear on non-Nexus/GPE devices.

New navigation buttons

Whatever the new changes are, the upcoming iteration of Android OS, which could be the L update that will be coming later this year with the next Nexus phone/tablet will be a dramatic shift.

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