Google Now Finally Heads to the iPhone

Google Now, which offers users automatically updated, personalized information via a series of on-screen “cards,” just made the jump from Android to the iPhone, hoping to woo fans of Apple’s Siri. iOS users can get Google Now as an update to Google’s existing Search app; you just swipe a finger upward on the app’s main screen to pull it up.

I’ve been using it today on an iPhone, and while it is nice to finally have Google Now—along with its cards that periodically bring me info like how long it will take me to get home from the office and the status of flights I’ve searched for or booked—I wonder if it will be tough for the search giant to gain a massive number of fans on the iPhone.

True, Google Now has some very cool predictive powers, oodles of data, and major brand recognition. But since it launched this past summer on Android, a number of other personal assistant apps have hit the market (and Apple’s App Store) that can use your data to make helpful predictions, including Osito (formerly known as Sherpa). Even if Google Now does gain popularity on iOS, I’m hopeful that the underdogs can keep some market share, too.