Rumor: Apple is working on Google Now competitor ‘Proactive’

Apple would like to automatically present users of iOS 9 with relevant information based on their search behavior, location and app use, just like Google does with its Now service. The service would be called Proactive and may have an augmented reality component.

Proactive would, among other things, use Siri, Passbook, the calendar, contacts and apps from third parties for the ‘predictions’. Apple has been working on the initiative for years and wants to respect user privacy, claims 9to5mac, which has shown in the past to have good resources within Apple.

Proactive’s announcement may coincide with iOS 9’s announcement at the Worldwide Developers Conference, which will take place on June 8. Proactive’s search bar would move to the left of the home screen and replace Spotlight in the drop-down menu, though 9to5mac says there are multiple builds with different spots for the service. Including Wikipedia results with Spotlight in iOS 8 was a first step towards the upcoming expansion of search capabilities. Following this, news results would play a prominent role in Proactive’s search function.

Below the new search bar, there would be three categories: Apps, Contacts, and Maps. This is where iOS would automatically post relevant information, such as flight times in Maps, calendar notifications, access to boarding passes, advice to depart at certain times due to traffic jams, and so on.

The service is reportedly going to analyze app usage and make use of user behavior patterns. Anyone who opens Twitter or Facebook every day at 9:00 a.m. will see those apps already open on his device around that time, and whoever calls his mother at set times will receive notifications in due course, so as not to forget.

Part of the initiative would be an extension of the Maps service with points of interest and a display for it called ‘Browse Around Me’. That function would show hotels, restaurants and other places on the map based on the estimated preferences of the user. A possible alternative view would be for the user to point their device at the streetscape and get menu suggestions at a restaurant location or offers when targeting a store. It is not yet clear whether Apple will actually apply this augmented reality display.

App developers should only partially open their apps to Proactive and Siri via the Breadcrumbs API for privacy reasons. Only parts of the apps that have been used recently could be accessed in this way by the services, such as a list of recently viewed genres in the Netflix app.