Google Now, Android’s personal assistant app, has added 9 new voice commands to make is easier for all users to do everyday tasks. Read all about them in this new feature.

Google Now, Android’s answer to iOS’ Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana, keeps growing and getting better with the addition of a few new voice commands that will help users get the best from their phones. Some of the new commands let the users send texts using only their voice, or calling their contacts, which is pretty sweet if you’re driving. The message can be written using only the user’s voice, which works pretty well at that. On the other hand, another new command allows users to activate music playback with their voice by just saying “Play [Name of the song]”  (which needs to be in Google Play).

There’s more: a new command allows users to turn WiFi on or off, or set an alarm, although you can’t pick the sound or repetitions just yet. All the user has to do is say turn [on / off] [Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Flashlight], or in the case of the alarm, “set alarm for…”. Of course, before inputting any command, it’s necessary to say “Ok Google Now”, just like it always was, so the phone doesn’t do anything weird by accident.

There are a lot of other cool functions this assistant can perform – for example, you could open any particular website by saying “go to [name of web]” or open apps by saying “open [name of app]”, or even do stuff like turn on the lantern, set the screen brightness or volume through commands like “lower brightness”, “silence phone”, and so on. The only problem is you can’t really measure how much louder or quieter it will go, or how much brighter or dim the screen will get – these commands are all amazing and useful, but Google still have to iron out a few kinks..

The time where voice commands seemed like a thing of the future are now long gone, and thanks to Google, Apple and Microsoft it is something we can actually do with our phones. Google in particular keeps revising and improving their services to give users the best possible performance. Google Now so is slowly becoming the perfect tool to finally break free from tactile screens and control everything via voice commands, so your phone can truly work for you without you having to worry about it. Who knows, in a couple of years we might not need secretaries any more.

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