Google Now On Tap is pretty useless - Nexus 6P

[Rob]

I've been trying to find appropriate times to use Google now on tap but it NEVER seems to work. On the web it works with very obvious matches bit within apps and elsewhere it's just a complete fail every time.

Does anyone use now on tap regularly? And for what? I want to like the feature but it just seems unhelpful 80% of the time so I've stopped caring.

 

[MLSS]

As it is right now, it's still nothing but a gimmick. Hopefully Google will find a way for it to be useful soon.

 

[rod9669]

I use it whilst the phone is in it's hands free cradle in the car - I use it to navigate, make calls, send texts, set reminders, look for local coffee shops - all without touching the phone

OK Google is the best thing ever invented

 

[MLSS]

I use it whilst the phone is in it's hands free cradle in the car - I use it to navigate, make calls, send texts, set reminders, look for local coffee shops - all without touching the phone

OK Google is the best thing ever invented

Now on tap and Google now are really 2 different things.
The OP is talking about now on tap.
Now on tap is something that became available with Marshmallow that is supposed to give you contextual information when you long press your home button about what's on your screen.
It does have a menue where you can access other information but it isn't the same as Google now.

 

[tube517]

I seem to never need it but when I need to google something, I forget about it. I'm too used to just using google now by talking or going to the white widget on the home screen.

 

[codesplice]

I use Now On Tap (now known as Screen Search) all the time.

Even if it doesn't automatically pick up on the word or phrase I'm interested in the first time, it's easy to manually select text to search for. And that even works with text in images, making it a great way to select and copy text even when Android doesn't provide that ability.

 

[Rob]

Is that a new feature of "screen search" @codesplice? I am seeing that now on Android 7.0 but didn't see it when I was on marshmallow.

Screen search actually seems WAY more robust since last time I used it. What is this update attributed to?

I especially like screen search from the home screen and within apps where you can select text

 

[codesplice]

@Rob I think that feature was added back in June:
https://search.googleblog.com/2016/06/now-on-tap-update-text-select-and-image.html?m=1

I think that's about the time that Screen Search graduated from an interesting novelty to something I could use on a regular basis, at least for me.