Yes

Google Now is bordering scary

Here's what happens on Google Now when you travel

1 - Search for a place (this is usually the hotel you're going to)

2 - Get there

3 - Google Now will give a traffic alert "xx minutes until $PLACE" (the place you searched for in n.1 )

After owning an Android for a couple of days, it correctly identified my 'home' without me having to enter or setup anything and gave me traffic information on getting home whenever I drove anywhere out.

It also identifies searches for any location (like you said) and offers directions to get there.

When travelling abroad, it identifies your change of location and offers up currency exchange rates and places to visit nearby.

Awesome and scary at the same time.

I didn't even mind that. What really freaked me out about Google Now is when it started showing package tracking cards based on having shipping notices in my email. Of course Google has access to all of that, but it weirded me out the first time I saw it.

Agreed.

Most of the times I check invoice emails I am looking for the Tracking Information.

This is what makes it tough to move away from Google. Yes they give the NSA access to my data and border on scary by analyzing all of my usage but they offer some really handy options.

Last time I traveled abroad I used Airbnb. When I arrived at the airport, Google Now gave me direction (by rail!) to the apartment I had rented. Spooky.

I don't think I've seen Apple copy any more blatently recently. iOS7 is bad enough but the attempt to outdo Google Now with calendar appointments is going to take a lot of hard work.

Copy what? The idea of showing context aware information?

Pretty much, the new screen on iOS7 is really so close to Google Now that if Google had added it in Android 5 there would have been all sorts of arrogant smug blog articles about how Google can't innovate etc.

You're trying too hard to find an angle where there isn't one.

With respect, accusations of copying were levelled at Apple's competition over having rounded corners on their devices, and rounded corners on their icons.

Practically a carbon copy of one of Google's most advanced features is worthy of note I think.

If you are repeating that false 'rounded corners' meme then you are either paid by Samsung (who started that), or beyond reason.

That's a rather offensive false dichotomy. Please don't accuse me of being paid off or mentally incapable.

I apologize if you really didn't know that Apple didn't make that accusation.

On August 24, 2012 the jury returned a verdict largely favorable to Apple. It found that Samsung had willfully infringed on Apple's design and utility patents and had also diluted Apple's trade dresses related to the iPhone ... The jury found Samsung infringed ... design patents that covers iPhone's features such as the "home button, rounded corners and tapered edges" (US D593087) and "On-Screen Icons" (US D604305).

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._v._Samsung_Electroni....

This seems to indicate that Apple did indeed assert what I claimed. Can you show me how this is false?

Pretty sure Google's own lawyers told Samsung the design was too close before it was even released.

This document proves that the meme is false and that Apple did not attempt to protect 'rounded corners'.

Apple asserted a design patent that protects the overall appearance of the iPhone - the 'trade dress'. Rounded corners are one of many attributes that describe the appearance of the iPhone. If you copy enough attributes - as the court ruled that Samsung did, you have copied the appearance.

Taking a single element out of context is a lie that Samsung originated, designed to give the appearance that Apple attempted to protect a ridiculously broad concept which the documents show that they did not do.

> This document proves that the meme is false and that Apple did not attempt to protect 'rounded corners'.

You are straight up lying here. Observe the patent: http://www.google.com/patents/USD593087

'many attributes' in this case meaning 'two attributes'.

Reading your post history you have a short history of only posting pro Apple and repeating many similar assertions. Yet you have the gall to accuse me of being a paid shill. Hilarious.

Yep, I realized that Google Now (aka the Google Search app on iOS) tracks your location only when my Google Activity reports started reporting Google Latitude data. At first I was confused since I haven't used that service since day 1 of launch, then after some digging around I noticed the search app is integrated with Now on the iOS and enables location services on tracking your every movement.

And to add to this point, a lot of apps seem to do it. I was wondering why my battery was draining so frequently and I took a look at my location services list and I noticed that Foursquare was another culprit that tapped into my location services very frequently.