Google Voice Search update: Google adds reservations, calendar and photo search to list of voice queries

Jason Gilbert

Unlike your ex, Google really is working hard to become a better listener.

On Wednesday Google announced that its Voice Search function would now be able to return results for several new spoken commands and questions, based on information stored in your Gmail, Google Calendar and Google+ account. Per a post to the Google Inside Search blog, you can now voice search for information on flights, reservations and purchases that have analogous email notifications in Gmail; calendar information within GCal; and your photos uploaded to Google+.

Google provided several samples of how this will work, but ideally it should be fairly obvious. For example, if you have a flight confirmation in your email, you'll now be able to ask Google if your flight is on time, or what gate your flight leaves from, and it will return an answer based on that email and the time. You'll also be able to ask about restaurant or hotel reservations, as well as driving directions to those locations; for purchases, you'll be able to get the current status of your orders.

Integration with Google Calendar, meanwhile,  means you can ask Google what your plans are for certain days of the week, while Google+ users can ask Google to show certain photos ("Show me photos of Linda"; "Show me photos from Thailand").

Google says the new features will be available on desktop, smartphones and tablets for all English-speaking American users within the next few days; users do not need to update their apps for the changes to take place.


The move bolsters Google Now and Google, in general, in its ongoing battle against Apple's personal assistant Siri. While Google has for awhile been able to return voice-based queries for facts and measurements using its web search, these new, more personalized capabilities could broaden both the appeal of the Google app for iOS, as well as Android smartphones in general.

The question remains, however, whether smartphone and tablet users actually want to talk to their devices, to query by voice and not by typing. While asking a question aloud may occasionally be faster than thumbing in the correct text, whether this is socially acceptable in polite company, or while walking down the street, still seems like an open question.

Google is hoping -- especially with its mainly-voice-controlled Google Glass coming right around the corner -- that natural voice interaction really will be the dominant mode of gadget interaction. And if it is -- well, now you can ask Google what gate your flight is leaving from.