Google Now for iOS discovered in a leaked video

In the recent past, Google has been showing a lot of love for Apple’s iOS platform. It makes sense really, considering Google is in the business of advertising and collating user information, so supporting one of the biggest platforms out there is a no-brainer.

Few months back, Google added the voice search functionality to the Google Search app for iOS. Although quite useful, it’s not quite on par with the excellent Google Now feature currently found only on Android Jelly Bean devices. But it looks like that’s about to change shortly.

In a video that was leaked on YouTube and then promptly pulled down (I mean seriously, who leaks Google’s videos on Google’s service?) the Google Now functionality was shown running on iOS devices. The video leaves little doubt in my mind that it has been made by Google, considering it’s the same style they have been using for their recent videos. It also shows us that the Google Now functionality would be built into the existing Google Search app for iOS, as you’d expect. I guess it’s fair to assume that this would be one of the things we can expect to see at Google I/O this year.

The most amusing thing about this is that the Google Search app, at least for now, is available on a wide range of iOS devices, including older ones like iPhone 3GS. If Google Now is added to it, the feature would see a user base growth of several times, considering only Android Jelly Bean users are using it as of now. So basically, a two year old iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4 could be running a Google feature that last year’s Android 4.0 device can’t. How’s that for food for thought?

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