Google’s smart camera-based app, Google Lens, is already a fairly useful app to have. It can identify objects in the real world, scan business cards to contacts, and copy text from the real world to your phone. Today, Google is adding new features to Google Lens that make it even more useful.
First up, Google Lens now supports cross-device copy and paste. This means that you can just point your phone towards any text, and copy it. Then you can paste it on any device that has a signed-in Chrome browser installed. This will make it so much easier to copy text between devices — it’s something iOS and macOS can do natively, and it’s definitely going to prove handy.
Then there’s the new ‘Listen’ feature. With this, you can quickly learn how to pronounce words. All you need to do is scan a word with Google Lens and tap on the new ‘Listen’ button that shows up. This can also be used to ask for directions to places in countries where you don’t know how to pronounce the names of places. Simply take a screenshot of the name, scan it with Lens and tap on ‘Listen’ to play it for a native speaker.
There’s also an in-line word search functionality that’s coming to Google Lens. This is similar to how Google Now on Tap used to work before it was killed off by Google and it definitely comes in handy when you need to make a quick Google search for a particular phrase or concept.
The new updates are making their way to Google Lens on Android and iOS with the exception of the Listen feature which is currently limited to Android phones. The company is expected to bring the feature to iOS with an update somewhere down the line.
