GBoard is great for accessing Google without leaving iMessage, but, unless you’re already using it as your default keyboard, switching back and forth is clunky. That should change with today’s update for the Google app on iOS. Now the Google app is available within the iMessage app drawer and it offers weather forecasts, trending news and location-based information in addition to GIFs, YouTube videos and search.
And within the Google app itself on iPad, you can drag a link, image or text into iMessage or the Notes app for safe keeping. Cool. In other iOS love, if you’re a Safari fan, now when you share a website using the Google dialog option, you’ll be presented with other items related to the URL at hand.
The iMessage tools are only available in the US at the moment, which is a little inconvenient. The Giphy extension is hit-or-miss and Apple’s own GIF search is stringent in terms of results, so hopefully a global roll-out is imminent. As TechCrunch notes, some of these new features have existed within the Google app for a bit before moving to iMessage.
