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Comment by Adaptive | Hacker News Reader

(Obligatory "as a former Google fan" header)

When Google isn't making my skin crawl / fists clench in fury lately, they are making me scratch my head.

Why on earth isn't Google Now, easily one of the most amazing things they've done recently and hugely competitive give how much big-data crunching and user profiling it requires, available as a widget on Android? Why is there no Now api that other apps can push cards to?

Why is there no Google Now launcher?

Now still feels like some interesting parallel world on Android (while Google+ feels like some uninteresting parallel world everywhere else).

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Can you elaborate? There is a Google Now widget on Android, I have it on my home screen right now. Do you mean something else? What do you mean by Google Now "launcher"? Something besides swiping up from the bottom of the screen?

I think making Now API-interactable would just beg for spammy popups. Mobile is already a maelstrom of apps trying to promote themselves, or getting paid to promote others.

That's a bad argument against an API, spammy apps are going to spam no matter what.

A Google Now API would be awesome.

Isn't handling of spam a major product hurdle for any public data interface?

Requires addressing in angles regarding security, UX, and performance at the very least.

Google already has a system in place for managing apps and services' access to your account[1]. Not to mention if you install crappy apps you are already going to have issues[2]. People need to be careful of what they install and give access to their account, I can't see how a Google Now API would make this problem worse.

[1]http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&a...

[2]http://www.androidguys.com/2012/02/28/airpush-ad-network-con...

Isn't this article about Google bringing Now to other platforms?

I have both a Google Now widget AND Google Now launcher. The big blue "Google" button in your drawer?

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