Google is rolling out a new, smarter Calendar app to go along with the two new Nexus devices out today. Both the Nexus 6 and the Nexus 9 run on Google’s new Lollipop 5.0 operating system. The new Calendar app works on Lollipop 5.0 and all Android 4.1 or newer devices.
The old app was pretty much manual entry for events. You had to scroll times and dates, enter an event name, address for the event and all people involved. The new app includes three key updates that allow it to fill in the blanks and make suggestions for you, shortly after you start to type in your event.
Here’s a brief video on how it works:
The new Schedule View will let you see a map of your event destination. It will also include photos, cityscapes and illustrations of the surrounding area. According to Google, these enhancements will “bring a little extra beauty to your day…”
Assists is a new, intuitive feature that basically guesses details to add to an event, based on your previous phone interactions. For example, if you run with a friend in the park every week, the new version of Google Calendar will suggest the place, time and person you always go with if you start to type “r-u-n.”
The core of the Google Calendar app is of course the events themselves. Google’s Calendar app now automates the events process by gathering info from your email inbox and guessing what you are doing. Say you have booked a flight to New York three weeks from now. The new Calendar will take the data from the email flight confirmation and add it to your calendar with the correct date, time and airline. It will also update the schedule if your flight’s delayed.
The app isn’t available for iPhone yet (Google says they’re working on that) but as we mentioned above, it already works for Lollipop 5.0. You can read more about it on Google’s official Gmail blog.