Google NOW is just a PITA

[TabGuy]

I want to like Google Now, I really do. But I'm having trouble with it and I don't know what to do to fix it. Here are my issues...

1. When I swipe up from the home button it can take 10+ seconds for Google Now to load and be ready. Really?

2. Often when I press the microphone it will say "initializing" and stay in that mode until I close it. Reopening it will often work but sometimes it says "initializing" for a few seconds even on the second time.

3. I press the microphone and the grey circle around it pulses. I know that it's not listening to me until the grey circle turns to red. Sometimes it doesn't hear me no matter what I say. This can be in a quiet room with no background sounds. Sometimes it will work if I yell at it very loudly. Certainly this wouldn't work in most public places. Other times it works perfect. I've tried holding it different as Steve Jobs would tell me to do but nothing helps when it's in this "old man" mode. What's really odd is that I know it hears me because the grey circle vibrates in synchrony with my voice. Very strange.

4. The cards are practically worthless. I always see the local temperature and sometimes I see time to my home or work but that's it. Nothing else appears. I know I've been told to be patient. However, it's been over 2 weeks now and I think I've been patient. The average noob would have trash talked this product all over the internet by now. When will cards with meaningful information show up? I get the temperature on my home page widget I don't need Google Now for that.

I'm using CM10 via Euroskank. Could it be their ROM is limiting the capabilities of Google Now?

 

[Droidintorrance]

dude that sound like a pain...

I'm running Friday's 803 version, and it's been pretty much the same as all the G-now...

pretty quick and responsive... I do see a bug.. from the lock screen to G-Now, after unlocking pattern the Gnow screen is just gray... no cards, just a search bar...

now sure if they took care of it by now...

You can enable what kind of cards you want... for me, I just do it ALL...

The more you search on sign-in chrome, the more Gnow stuff will show up... start asking V-Search different interests of yours, the more will show...

 

[ellisz]

How do you change your Home location? I went on vacation and apparently set it as my home. It keeps telling me how long the drive is going to be ...

I have only seen the weather and drive time too though.

 

[TabGuy]

I should add that I do see the next appointment on my Exchange calendar. I don't use my calendar that way, though. I want to see the entire day at a time so the next appt by itself isn't very useful.

I believe I've enabled all cards.

The sluggishness has been there ever since I've upgraded to JB. It was that way on DroidVicious and it's that way on CM10. It improves to about only 2 seconds if I use it frequently. But it always seems to be slow when I need it most.

 

[Droidintorrance]

Try setting it in Latitude

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Android Central Forums

 

[Canuckfan]

How do you change your Home location? I went on vacation and apparently set it as my home. It keeps telling me how long the drive is going to be ...

I have only seen the weather and drive time too though.

Through your desktop, sign into your google account. Go to maps.google.com and then "My Places". There should be 2 labels where you can set your work and home location.

You can also set it on your phone through Latitude (as Droidintorrance mentioned above). But its just more convoluted.

 

[Jeff43]

I'm using CM10 via Euroskank. Could it be their ROM is limiting the capabilities of Google Now?

I'm running the same ROM as you, but I'm not experiencing any of the issues with Google Now that you've mentioned.
Have you tried a complete wipe: cache, delvik, system, then a fresh install?

I don't think you can blame the ROM, or this surely would have been noted in the forums as a issue.

Try a re-install and see if that don't fix Google Now.

 

[anon(596177)]

I want to like Google Now, I really do. But I'm having trouble with it and I don't know what to do to fix it. Here are my issues...

1. When I swipe up from the home button it can take 10+ seconds for Google Now to load and be ready. Really?

2. Often when I press the microphone it will say "initializing" and stay in that mode until I close it. Reopening it will often work but sometimes it says "initializing" for a few seconds even on the second time.

3. I press the microphone and the grey circle around it pulses. I know that it's not listening to me until the grey circle turns to red. Sometimes it doesn't hear me no matter what I say. This can be in a quiet room with no background sounds. Sometimes it will work if I yell at it very loudly. Certainly this wouldn't work in most public places. Other times it works perfect. I've tried holding it different as Steve Jobs would tell me to do but nothing helps when it's in this "old man" mode. What's really odd is that I know it hears me because the grey circle vibrates in synchrony with my voice. Very strange.

4. The cards are practically worthless. I always see the local temperature and sometimes I see time to my home or work but that's it. Nothing else appears. I know I've been told to be patient. However, it's been over 2 weeks now and I think I've been patient. The average noob would have trash talked this product all over the internet by now. When will cards with meaningful information show up? I get the temperature on my home page widget I don't need Google Now for that.

I'm using CM10 via Euroskank. Could it be their ROM is limiting the capabilities of Google Now?

Try and keep in mind as well that the cards in google now are the most useful if you are traveling (At least at this point in development. Aside from the sports card which will show up before/during/after a game that is.

If you use the google search engine or google maps to find a certain locaion like a restaraunt, a card will show up giving you an ETA and traffic report. If you search a flight in google now, a card will show up updating you of flight times and delays for THAT flight. If you approach a bus stop, you get a card notifying you of the times and routes to expect for the buses that stop there.

It's a really neat tool but its very conditional. Don't think that it's not working simply because all you see is weather and 'to work' transit. I'm sure with updates more will be added.

 

[indianajonze]

i am loving google now and personally cannot do without it. it notifies me of my commute time each morning and evening, gives me a nice rundown of the bus schedule outside and catches me up on the weather and mets scores each day without me having to do any searching at all

 

[VAVA Mk2]

I want to like Google Now, I really do. But I'm having trouble with it and I don't know what to do to fix it. Here are my issues...

1. When I swipe up from the home button it can take 10+ seconds for Google Now to load and be ready. Really?

2. Often when I press the microphone it will say "initializing" and stay in that mode until I close it. Reopening it will often work but sometimes it says "initializing" for a few seconds even on the second time.

3. I press the microphone and the grey circle around it pulses. I know that it's not listening to me until the grey circle turns to red. Sometimes it doesn't hear me no matter what I say. This can be in a quiet room with no background sounds. Sometimes it will work if I yell at it very loudly. Certainly this wouldn't work in most public places. Other times it works perfect. I've tried holding it different as Steve Jobs would tell me to do but nothing helps when it's in this "old man" mode. What's really odd is that I know it hears me because the grey circle vibrates in synchrony with my voice. Very strange.

4. The cards are practically worthless. I always see the local temperature and sometimes I see time to my home or work but that's it. Nothing else appears. I know I've been told to be patient. However, it's been over 2 weeks now and I think I've been patient. The average noob would have trash talked this product all over the internet by now. When will cards with meaningful information show up? I get the temperature on my home page widget I don't need Google Now for that.

I'm using CM10 via Euroskank. Could it be their ROM is limiting the capabilities of Google Now?

Sounds like you flashed a bad ROM or did a dirty flash. Doesn't run that slow for me. Also, you can change the navigation buttons in some ROMs to add this feature. I have 4 navigation buttons, the fourth being search, and set up the long press to use Voice Search (Google Now). Works like gravy (or butter hehe).

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Android Central Forums

 

[beerhound]

GoogleNow is apparently using the cell tower location rather than GPS. It routinely tells me that no traffic info is available for my area and I have a 12 minute commute home while I'm sitting in my recliner.

 

[atlas9171]

GoogleNow is apparently using the cell tower location rather than GPS. It routinely tells me that no traffic info is available for my area and I have a 12 minute commute home while I'm sitting in my recliner.

Well depending how many beers you drink, it could be right lol

 

[Bushido Brown]

I'm running Bugless Beast. My Google Now is faster than Usain Bolt.

 

[ShahinTr]

To be fair, all those faults you are stating are merely yours. I have not experienced any of the following, regarding the cards, do you travel often to various locations, take flights, then it would be useful. Google Now is brilliant, for the full experience, you need to link it with Google latitude.

 

[bass_lover1]

Make sure that you have web history enabled.

Google Now > Settings > Privacy and Accounts > Manage Web History.

I had mine set to off and nothing would show up except the weather, once I enabled it the rest of the cards started working.

 

[Shadow53007]

Make sure that you have web history enabled.

Google Now > Settings > Privacy and Accounts > Manage Web History.

I had mine set to off and nothing would show up except the weather, once I enabled it the rest of the cards started working.

Thank you for that. I was having the same problem and that fixed it

 

[svenEDGE]

I'm using bugless beast and my G-Now can be slow at start up and sometimes when I use the voice function it does get stuck in the "initializing" stage. Idk if its because I use Titanium backup to backup and restore apps with data or what but I definitely see some of what you're saying.

 

[zachavm]

I've been having the same problems you described in your post. It looks like the "Initializing" issue is releated to having a bluetooth connection going.

http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-nexus/580673-initializing-voice-input.html

That makes sense for me as I have a bluetooth headset I like to use.

 

[jean15paul]

I'm running R-U-Jellin ROM on my Sprint GNex. I haven't had the initializing and listening problems that you describe, but I had some of the same feelings about the cards. I actually made the post below in the General Help and How To forum, here: http://forums.androidcentral.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=2036096

So I flashed JB about 3 weeks ago, and the feature I was most excited about was Google Now. After using it for 3 weeks, I'm not impressed. The Voice Search is pretty good, but I feel like I'm not getting enough cards.

I thought Google Now was supposed to learn from me and automattically present me with relavent info (i.e. cards). I used Google Now for about 2 weeks and the only thing that I ever got was local weather. After 2 weeks I went to Maps and manually added my home and work locations, so now I get local weather and drive time to home and work. I've never got anything else. I've never gotten any sports updates (maybe when football season starts). I've never gotten cards for my next appointment, and I do use Google Calendar (maybe I need to add street addresses to all my appointments). I've never been shown "nearby interesting places".

All the cards are on except for "Public Transit", because I manually turned that one off when I initially started using it.

Anyway, am I doing something wrong? Were my expectations for Google Now too high? What's everyone else's experience.

Since I wrote that, I have noticed that I get nav/ETA cards when I do a Google search for a location, even if I do that search on my desktop (assuming I'm signed into Google). I've also realized that there aren't many cards that are useful if you're not traveling. There's nav/ETA, weather, sports, next appointment (which I'm not sure if I've gotten), and "interesting places" (which I definitely haven't gotten).

I assume (hope?) that Google will be continuing to make improvements.

 

[a.d.am]

I have n7 and google now does everything its supposed to. I get cards for weather, sports, traffic for anything i search on any of my devices, traffic home, recent searches. Did you go to the settings and add all the cards to your google now feed?? Did you make sure everything is at a "high priority"??