Monday, October 21, 2019

Google tests new features in Gboard, Google Contacts, and Digital Wellbeing

When it comes to its own suite of apps, Google does a great job of adding new features, optimizations and improvements. The company releases timely updates for all of its apps and sometimes we’re also able to find hints of upcoming features in these updates. For instance, we recently discovered that Google Maps was prepping up to introduce traffic obstruction reporting on the app. Similarly, we now have information about a couple of new features making their way to Gboard, Google Contacts, and Digital Wellbeing.

A recent string of tweets from @wongmjane sheds light on these upcoming features. Here are all the new features that she discovered in the latest updates for these three apps:

GIF suggestion and sentence completion in Gboard

Google’s popular keyboard app – Gboard – is reportedly testing a new GIF suggestion feature. This new feature will allow users to easily search for GIFs based on the emotion of the word they type in. In effect, the feature will let you find happy GIFs just by typing in the word ‘happy’ in the keyboard. Here’s a short clip of the feature in action:

Additionally, Gboard is also testing a sentence completion feature which works quite a lot like the Smart Compose feature in Gmail. The feature makes use of machine learning to provide accurate predictions that will help you complete sentences with a single tap. Check it out in action in the tweet below:

Changes to Focus Mode and manual app pausing in Digital Wellbeing

With Android 10, Google introduced a new Focus mode to Digital Wellbeing, allowing you to pause apps and focus on your work for a set time duration. Now, it seems like the company is planning to give users the option to take a break in between and resume the Focus mode after a while. Screenshots of the upcoming feature reveal that the new Take a break feature will let you take 5, 15 or 30 minute breaks while you’re using the Focus mode and it’ll also give you the option to resume the mode before the break elapses.

Additionally, there’s a new Pause button in the App timer which will let you manually pause any app on your device to help you stay away from distractions.

UI changes and improvements for Google Contacts

Google is also testing a couple of UI changes and improvements for its Contacts app. The company is testing a new UI for contact shortcuts which will bring the contact information close to the bottom of your phone for easy access.

The app is also working on a new design for the contact form, search history support for easy access to contacts that you looked up, and a new contact sharing UI which will let you choose specific contact details you wish to share with someone else.

On top of all that, Google Contacts is also testing a new feature that will let you look up contacts from other apps like Telegram, Messenger, etc. This feature is expected to simplify the process of looking for contacts, however, it won’t let you modify contacts stored on the other apps.

Finally, Google Contacts is also testing a feature that will allow you to move saved contacts between different accounts. This feature can really come in handy for those of you who have multiple Google accounts on your phone. Once implemented, the feature will let you move any contact from one account to another with just a single tap.

As of now we have no information regarding the release timeline for these features. However, since the features have already made their way to the apps, it won’t be long before Google starts rolling them out to users. What’s your take on these new features? Let us know in the comments section below.

The post Google tests new features in Gboard, Google Contacts, and Digital Wellbeing appeared first on xda-developers.

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