Google has promised many new features on the Android 9 Pie. There is the new gesture-based navigation system on the latest Android. Besides, the Digital Wellbeing feature on the latest operating system is highly awaited. Apart from all these features, the Google Android 9 Pie is also being said to be very smart. An example of such a feature would be the ‘App Actions’. Predictive App Actions is something Google talked a lot about at the Google I/O 2018 event because it works on Artificial Intelligence. App Actions appear on your smartphone's App Drawer underneath the popular apps row, and there will be two actions which will be based on your routines, Context and App Sequences.
App Actions Don’t Just Get You Search Results; They Do the Task
Previously, Google has facilitated smart features employing Google Assistant, Voice search, Maps and much more. However, App Actions go a step further and get the job done for you instead of just giving the information about how you can carry out a specific task. According to Google, “with App Actions, developers can tie the same sort of "smarts" into their own app and help you actually get things done instead of just telling you how to get things done.”
App Actions, as mentioned above, works on a user's routines. For example, you dial a contact more often on your routine and in Android 9 Pie, your device will automatically detect the same, and it shows the direct contact option on your App Drawer. To give another example, you message a contact on WhatsApp very often on your routine and App Actions will put the contact right in your App Drawer, so that you can jump to the contact's chat screen and start messaging, instead of opening WhatsApp and searching for the contact.
To illustrate how the App Actions work, Google has given the example of booking a cab ride. Whenever in Android 9 Pie you type, “I need to book a ride” or speak the same into Google Assistant, Google will open up the Lyft app for you, since it is tied to the search by app actions. This way instead of giving you options of ride book services, or just showing you the search results, Google opens the application for you.
Smarter and Faster Tasking While Pairing with App Slices
Things get better when App actions are paired with App Slices. So when you type "I need to book a ride" in the search app paired with app slices, the app suggests a small sliver of the Lyft application where you can quickly see the ride options, pricing of the ride or most frequented places etc. This way, App actions combined with app slices will facilitate swift completion of mundane tasks.
Developers Can Use App Actions to Combine Actions and Searches
Google has also said that app actions will help the developers in combining certain tasks or actions with particular searches in the Google Assistant. This way, simple Google searches can lead up to conversations with the assistant and quick booking or ordering of products or similar tasks. For example, if you ask for "Pizza Hut Toppings" in the Google Assistant, the app might not only list all the available options but also open relevant applications or website for easy ordering.
