Google can now recognise Hindi handwriting on Android, iOS devices

Today, Google announced beta support for Hindi handwriting and the ability to switch to a native Hindi experience for Android. These are baby steps to make the Hindi internet simpler to use, the Internet giant claims. The new feature allows users to type in Hindi on a touchscreen, using fingers/a stylus after which it recognises the characters on its own.

"We believe you should be able to use the internet in Hindi as easily as you read and write today. No matter what kind of handwriting you have, Google can help you find exactly what you’re looking for — so here’s to Handwrite in Hindi, we hope you have as much fun using it as we did creating it!" an official press release said.

How it works?

Write in Hindi and you shall find on Google Search Handwrite enables you to search by just writing letters with your finger or stylus anywhere on your device’s screen—there’s no keyboard that covers half of the screen and no need for typing. 

Here’s how you can start scribbling away

1. Go to www.google.co.in in your mobile browser, tap on “Settings” at the bottom of the screen, go to Search Settings and enable “Handwrite.” 

2. Change language in Google products to Hindi. Also add “Hindi” as a Language of Search Results. Note that after you've saved the setting, you may need to refresh the homepage to see the feature. On tablets, the Search settings are available as an option behind the gear icon.

3. Once the feature is enabled, tap the Handwrite icon on the bottom right corner of your screen to activate Handwrite mode. Write a few letters and you’ll see autocomplete options appear below the search box. If one of the options is what you’re looking for, just tap it to search. 

4. For longer queries, you can continue writing a string of characters and then use the arrows next to the autocompletions to move the right one into the search box. Remember, you can write anywhere on the screen.

The handwrite feature is currently available on all Android 2.3+ phones, Android 4.0+ tablets and iOS5+ devices.

Author's comment: While there are many handwriting recognition apps and built in software in phones and tablets, the option to make a Google page outside of an app recognise handwriting is awesome. Who knows it could bring handwriting back in style?

Handwrite tips and tricks

Delete letters: Touch the  backspace icon at the bottom of the page.

Start over: Touch X in the search box at the top of the page.

Clarify ambiguous characters: When you type a character that could be mistaken for another, like 0 (the number) and O (the letter), a list of options may appear at the bottom of the screen.

Use predictions: To help save you time, a list of predicted queries may appear in the search box as you write. Touch a prediction to search for that query, or touch the  arrow to the right of a query to explore related searches.

Include symbols: Try symbols and special characters such as + @ & $.

iOS Apps Crash more than Android Apps

While there are still mixed reactions on iOS 7 which comes with an all new design, let’s check out a detailed comparison table which gives you a detailed insight on where each of the OS stands. While some say that iOS is an explicit copy of Windows Phone OS as well as from Android’s Jellybean OS, it has become tough for Apple to give out clarification. With Google keenly looking at the iOS 7, it seems like the next version of Android will surely be different from what we saw till now. Rumors are doing the rounds that the next version of Android will also be supporting the low end devices. In recent Android OS version, Jellybean 4.1 – 4.2.2 didn’t see many changes in terms of UI /UX and almost looked same.

iOS 7	Android 4.2	Windows Phone 8	BlackBerry 10
Control Center	Varies by Manufacturer	No Settings Menu	Access to System Settings is Possible
Notification center	Detailed notifications	Live tile badges	BlackBerry Hub, badges
Multitasking preview	Recently Used List	Multitasking preview	Active Frames grid
Surfaced camera modes	Varies by Android skin	Third-party lenses	Video, Time Shift modes
Photos grouped by years, location	Albums, other filters	Albums, date	Albums, recent
Shared photo stream	Select Android Devices have it	Share one by one	Share one by one
Peer-to-peer sharing (AirDrop)	Android Beam (NFC)	Tap + Share (NFC)	NFC sharing
Unified browser bar	Yes	Yes	Yes
Personalized radio/discovery	Google Play Music All Access	Nokia Music	Third-party app
Voice access to system settings	Samsung’s S Voice	No systems access	No systems access
Automatic app updates	Update All & Individual App Update option	‘Update all’ option	Individual
Password-protected reset	No	No	No
In-dash integration (iOS for cars)	Driving mode/S Drive	Nokia Drive	Third-party apps
iCloud Like Service	No	No	No

While the iTunes Radio is Free for all service, Google has launched the All Access Music Service which comes with the subscription service which costs $10. Nokia Music too is a free service but only is limited to Windows Phones.

So, currently there are 4 Operating Systems which are ruling the charts which includes iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone 8. OS 7 today makes a big splash when it comes to its refined interface design and a smaller splash when it comes to its new feature set. Do let us know your thoughts on which one is your current favorite OS in the comments section below.

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Android Continues to Dominate Smartphone Market by Significant Margins

We’ve known for quite some time now that Android has been dominating the smartphone market for the past couple of years. In fact, Android’s market share has been at least double that of Apple’s for a long period of time. There are several factors that are contributing to this and the most recent numbers begin to really put things into perspective.

In Q2 of 2013, Android has encompassed an enormous market share of 79.3%. This is absolutely huge as is as become clear that Android is the king of the mobile space and is showing absolutely no signs of letting up. While Android’s market share is up from 69.1% just over a year ago, its competitors’ share is consequently going down. Blackberry for example has hit an all-time low, which is very unfortunate news seeing as the company put so much faith in its Blackberry 10 OS and Z10 device. Going from 5% last year to 3% this quarter just may be a sign that Blackberry is fading into oblivion.

Not all of Android’s competitors are losing market share however. Microsoft has seen success alongside Nokia’s Lumia line of devices and has actually overtaken Blackberry as number 3 in market share going from 3.1% last year to 3.7% this quarter. Whether this change is a result of Microsoft’s success or Blackberry’s failure is unclear, but it is definitely certain that the mobile market is becoming increasingly competitive.

Perhaps the biggest fall was from the folks over in Cupertino. Apple’s market share fell from 16.6% last year to 13.2% this quarter. However, Apple’s new iPhone coming later this year is likely to gain some of that momentum back. Likewise, Blackberry’s new OS is still in its infancy and certainly has plenty of room to grow. The IDC states that “BlackBerry will need time and resources to evangelize more end users”.

Android’s success is thanks to an increase in the number of Chinese manufactures pushing out devices. The open-source model certainly has its advantages when it comes to numbers. However, it unfortunately is responsible for an extreme lack of unity across devices, making for a confusing and inconsistent Android ecosystem.