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Comment by degenerate | Hacker News Reader

How come whenever Google launches something, I only know the who/what, but am never told the when/where/how? Telling me WHEN (if ever) this will be available on my device, WHERE to download it when that happens, and HOW it will integrate into my device/profile would be really nice to read about :(

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Because they don't want to make any false promises. If they were to say it works on android they have to qualify that with something like "if all the stars align and your carrier, your handset manufacturer, and any other middlemen can't find a way to stop us".

Like with so much other stuff google makes, this isn't really something google needs to market to consumers. This is the bait they are giving to handset manufacturers to incentivize them to push out an update to the latest version of android.

It's a part of Android 4.1, so the WHEN, WHERE and HOW depend a lot on what phone you have.

"It's a part of Android 4.1"

Is it? I think Google Now is part of the "Google Apps for Android" suite. These apps are not part of Android itself, they are licensed by manufacturers to complement their Android-based operating system.

And these Apps are usually updated by Google and independently from the OS. So unless "Google Now" uses a specific API that is only available in 4.1, I would expect older devices receive the app as well.

It's not an app... it's like the notification tray. You can't simply 'take' the notification tray from one OS to another. Same with this. It comes with Jelly Bean.

So my one year old phone will never see it. I am so tired of the one year obsolescence cycle of Android phones.

This is why I recommend only Nexus devices.

Google now, later.

Do they say that? The horrible transcription didn't include that (I didn't feel like getting my headphones out for the video).

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