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July 26, 2012

Handwriting Recognition in Google Mobile Search

Google's mobile search site has a new feature: handwriting recognition. Instead of using your mobile device's virtual keyboard to type the query, you can just write the letters with your finger.

This feature is disabled by default, but you can enable it on your mobile phone or tablet, by visiting the settings page, tapping "enable" in the "handwrite" section and then saving the settings.


"Say you're standing on a busy street corner, in a bumpy taxi ride, talking with a friend, or sitting on the couch with your tablet. Handwrite enables you to search by just writing letters with your finger most anywhere on your device's screen — there's no keyboard that covers half of the screen and no need for hunt-and-peck typing," suggests Google.

While this feature could be useful for short queries or popular queries that only require entering a few letters and using Google's suggestions, it's more efficient to use the virtual keyboard instead of writing each letter.


Google's Handwrite feature works for iOS5+ devices, Android 2.3+ phones and Android 4.0+ tablets and it's available for 27 languages.

12 comments:

  1. No Windows Phone love. Didn't see the settings using WP7.5

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    Replies
    1. The same with Opera Mobile, but it's expected. Google doesn't like Opera so much that it actively blocks new functionality on it (search by image, for example, that worked since day 0 if you set user-agent to Firefox).

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  2. Cool - Shame this doesn't work on the 'google search' ipad app...

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    Replies
    1. I agree. It would be great to have it on the Google Search! Hopefully they will add this feature sooner than later.

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  3. the IOS5+ is very cool it really works a lot. I wish I could have one of those.

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  4. i would like to see more handwriting widely supported on android, esp tablets, it would make notetaking a lot less tedious

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  5. Woooow,..i try this feature on my ipod touch,..its looks like write by pencil.. :) love this....

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  6. i found my google handwrite on my iPhone 4s...i use and i just wanna say WOOOOOOOWW fantastic feature....Great Work!

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  7. Piece of crap. How do I get rid of the button? I keep bumping it and going to handwriting mode. I hate handwriting mode. I guess I'll have to change browsers.

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    Replies
    1. By going in to your google profile's setting you can disable it.

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    2. There is option to enable or disable handwriting tool. Just simply go to your google profile's setting.

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  8. Does not work at all, not even close to well formed letters. Google engineers need to try again

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