Rumor suggests that ‘new assistive features’ are coming in future version of Android

Not much is known about the next version of Android, but a vague report from VentureBeat suggests that Google is working on “new assistive features” for the OS. One feature aims to reduce copy and pasting, while another allows gesture drawing to quickly surface information.

“Copy Less” is billed as a feature that automatically copies relevant information from apps and surfaces it when needed. It intelligently assume what data a user is referencing based on the context of a conversation and makes it available as a suggestion:

As an example, if you and a friend are having a conversation in a chat about where to eat dinner and you find a good restaurant in the Yelp app, when you go back to your conversation and type “it’s at,” one automatically generated suggestion in Gboard would be the restaurant’s address. You can just tap it, and the keyboard will populate the text box with the address, which you can send with the send button

It’s unclear whether this is a system-wide Android feature or will only work in Gboard. The same ambiguity applies to the next rumored featured.

At the moment, Android messaging apps, like Android Messages and Hangouts, do not recognize addresses. Other apps, like Keep, will automatically open Google Maps when tapped. VentureBeat suggests that proper recognition will finally come to messaging apps on Android, though it’s more likely that this would be a system-wide addition.

The last feature is already found on some OEM devices, but finger gestures could soon come to stock Android. Interestingly, it would not just open apps, but rather directly surface information:

For example, the source said, if you draw the letter C onscreen, then Android will show a short list of recent contacts.

VentureBeat’s source notes that gesture recognition could be scrapped before launch, while it’s not guaranteed that the other two features will necessarily make it into the next version of Android.