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Google Search app getting ‘Notifications’ tab for followed topics on iOS

Following the ongoing removal of Assistant Snapshot on Android, the Google for iOS app looks to be adding a “Notifications” tab.

The iPhone and iPad app today consists of Home (Discover feed), Collections (saves), and Tabs (for the built-in browser on iOS). Some users are now starting to get “Notifications” in between the two latter sections. Google says to:

Tap the bell as you search to get updates on the things you care about 

That bell icon appears in the top-right corner of Knowledge Panels for sports teams (to get live scores), TV shows (new episode alerts), and movies. Overall, Google says “notifications are only available for some trending topics, like people, places, or things.”

At the moment, these updates are delivered as notifications that perform a search upon tapping. Alerts can be ignored or lost in the fray, and Google’s solution is to provide a centralized feed that you can easily return to. It could encourage people to perform searches they might otherwise have forgotten about.

We’ve only received one report of this “Notifications” tab in the Google app for iOS, which was empty, as you can see. It’s not appearing on two other devices we checked with version 206.0 this afternoon. It’s not clear whether the Google app on Android would receive something similar.

More on Google app:

Thanks tipster

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Avatar for Abner Li Abner Li

Editor-in-chief. Interested in the minutiae of Google and Alphabet. Tips/talk: abner@9to5g.com