Google has moved from being the go-to engine for searching content online (it still is actually) into something much more. It is safe to say Google definitely has all of us in its grasp with each and every one of us competing and working to own the next thing Google creates or manufactures and releases. Google lens is one hell of a software program created by Google! Google lens is an image recognition software that was developed by the technology department of Google. The recognition software was made with access to the extremely large database of Google information. This means that it was designed to access the database and bring up relevant search results of images your input. It was particularly made for android phones. The google lens was developed into an app and can be accessed via opening the app.

Brief Background

Google lens was not made for all smartphones at first. The app was first released with the Google phone series. The phone that pioneered it was Google Pixel 2. It was a pre-installed app on the phone. Owing to the fact that the lens app quickly hooked people, Google immediately rolled out the software into all other Pixel phones. It was integrated into Google Assistant afterward. The implication of this was that you can now search for an image using an image with Google Assistant without necessarily having the app. The following year saw the release of the software for phones without the google lens i.e. non-pixel phones including Apple iOS devices. Now new versions of Android smartphones been integrated into its camera app the google lens software without necessarily downloading the app. Google lens for Android was also released on Google Play Store before later rolling out the app on the iOS app store. It is important to note that the app comes with support for Android version 6.0 (Marshmallow) and other newer versions. For iOS, it supports all the phones.

Simply put, Google lens uses the camera of your Android or iOS device to detect an object and bring up relevant and related information about it thanks to its impressive and efficient AI technology. In addition, its use of deep machine learning to access the huge database of Google makes it a must-have app. In fact in a tweet by Google on its release in 2017, it said: “With Google Lens, your smartphone camera won’t just see what you see, but it will also understand what you see to help you action”. This pretty much sums it up.

Your Google lens will recognize images of any restaurant, bar, club, etc. as long as they are connected to the internet via a router. It can actually recognize anything and provide you very useful information. Oh! And it is extremely fast in coming up with search results.

I have taken the time to use the google lens for android while doing this write-up. Thus, I would be discussing briefly all the features and ability Google Lens has that makes it such a wonderful app to use:

  1. Smart text search: This is a feature in Google Lens that allows you to search for relevant information on a particular word or sentence without actually typing it.
To do this, you simply need to open either your Google Assistant app or the Google lens app itself. Once you open either app, you will then need to take a picture of the text. As soon as you finish this, you would now have to highlight the text and look it up online.

  1.  OCR abilities: when I used the google lens app, this was one of the things I immediately loved about the app. With google lens, you can simply take a picture of some texts and then easily highlight the text and copy. This can really come in handy if you need the soft copy form of a document. With the lens and an app like Microsoft word, you would quickly create the document before you know it.
Note: it can only be done within Google Lens and not in your photos or gallery app.

  1. Random Search results: From clothing to footwears to groceries shopping etc. you can use Google Lens to identify the items. Not just this, with the Google Lens app, you would also get search results of items similar to the piece you search for. It would also suggest supermarkets and stores close to you where you can get them.
In addition, you can even point your phone’s camera on your house decors so that you can get suggestions on newer things to buy to upgrade them. One other thing you get with this app is it gives you reviews from people. With this, you don’t have to waste your money buying an item or product only to discover it was bad or not as useful as thought. With the reviews, you would be able to decide for yourself whether you want to share in the experience of those who wrote the reviews.

  1. Search important things: Google Lens allows you the chance to know what is around you. If you use your camera on anything near you, it would tell you what things to expect near the area.
Note: Newer android phones now come with the Lens software integrated into the Google Photos app.

The truth is if you are an active Android user who is always quick to look things up on the internet using google, you should definitely use the Lens app.