Have you ever thought how long it takes to actually move or copy content from one place to another in your smartphone? If you haven’t, just think once.
Ok let me help you: Moving files from a SD card to a phone memory or vice versa requires at least 8 taps (Yes, I calculated that while using my default file manager).
Not just files, copying text from one app to another take 20 seconds.
Let’s say your girlfriend suggested you a place where you should go for your next date. Now for booking a table for you two, it will take you, at least, 6-7 steps.
Now to solve these time consuming awkward problems Google is bringing a cool feature to its Android OS: Drag and Drop across apps.
A recent patent granted to Google hints a smart Drag and Drop feature for smartphones. The drag and drop feature will support text, images, video files and any editable content.
Just like on computers, you will be able to select files, or keywords, and drag to another app to paste.
Also, you can take other actions on the basis of what you pick and where you drop it.
According to the patent, whenever you select and start dragging the object (whether it is text from messaging app or an image from gallery), you’ll be shown suitable apps that can accept such content (for example, photo editors or social media apps for photos or videos, and messaging or ecommerce apps for texts).
Your smartphone will be able to decide which apps to show using machine learning. This will help in predicting future actions as well.
Now let’s again consider booking a table for you and your girlfriend, however with that drag and drop feature:
See? It only takes 3 steps!! Your phone will predict what you want to do with the dropped content on its own (That, in this case was searching within the app)
Another scenario could be picking an image from gallery and dragging to Snapchat or drag it to Gmail app for sending as an attachment.
Not only that, you can use this feature with Google Assistant as well. For example, after selecting a hotel name, you can speak “search for this in my Hotel Booking app” for booking a table.
Do you know? : Google Maps new feature will automatically schedule a cab booking
thats pretty good
No thanks. Machine learning is just an excuse for Google to spy on your personal information,
Cool. I’m curious what security issues will need addressing once it’s live.
Wow, this (when it’s finally released) will really be a game changer.
Bump app was much easier than this IMO.
Anyways.. Much welcomed feature though..
So basically a fancier share method?
I mean, don’t get me wrong I like it very much, but is it game-changing in any way? I doubt that.
It’s not game changing in anyway. It’s something that decreases the gap between a desktop and a smartphone. Isn’t it? What do you say, Yechiam?
Well it’s definitely looks closer to the desktop drag & drop feel, but is it really?
The only way we can really have something that would BREAK the gap between desktop and smartphone is if we have a bit bigger screens with UX similar to Remix OS, Chrome OS, or even the app Taskbar, as a default implementation of the Dual-Window-missed-chance. If we truly expend to multitasking on Android, we wouldn’t need to worry about those (pretty cool but) kinda useless shortcuts.
Couldn’t agree more, Yechiam.