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Looking at switching from an IPhone to a Winmo device (Touch Pro 2 to be specific) but need to know if some of the applications i use everyday are available. and at what price (if not free)
Shazam:Music Identification. real simple.
Pandora:found a few Cabs around, but no mention of compatibility with WVGA screens.
Urban Spoon: basically a program that uses your current GPS position to locate nearby restaurants.
Fandango/I.TV: shows local theaters, play times. allows purchase of tickets through the program.
Units: quick and easy unit converter.
now, are all these available with a nice finger friendly interface?
thank's for taking your time to help me figure out what all is available.
crazy talk said:
Looking at switching from an IPhone to a Winmo device (Touch Pro 2 to be specific) but need to know if some of the applications i use everyday are available. and at what price (if not free)
Shazam:Music Identification. real simple.
Pandora:found a few Cabs around, but no mention of compatibility with WVGA screens.
Urban Spoon: basically a program that uses your current GPS position to locate nearby restaurants.
Fandango/I.TV: shows local theaters, play times. allows purchase of tickets through the program.
Units: quick and easy unit converter.
now, are all these available with a nice finger friendly interface?
thank's for taking your time to help me figure out what all is available.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In my experience with WinMO, simple apps that do only one thing are rare. The iPhone developers are more on that path. With WinMo, you are more likely to find full featured apps. For instance, instead of having an app that will just find the info for a song, you will more likely find a music player with that ability. I think Pocket Music Player (?) can do that. Think more like what kind of apps are out there for windows, you tend to get clones of those for the mobile platform. That is good and bad. For a power user, it is good.
I do know that a good unit converter exists. I for get the name. For a good list of apps, lookup the 2008/2009 smartphone magazine winners and runner-ups for WinMo apps (search google for "best pps apps") and you will find it. It lists a lot of good apps. Also, look up "ppc freeware" for some other good sites.
Shazam exists, do a Google for MusicID, i have a feeling it is only available preinstalled by the carrier but i may well be wrong.
Don't know about the rest.
2- if it is not compatible the graphical layout will be smaller (but in most case it's all right)
3/4- Google maps or the Web do it
5- to many app on the web
D'rath
Yup...
As it's been said, Shazam, and Pandora already exist. I have Shazam MusicID running on my Kaiser on T-Mobile, and it works just fine.
For the other two, why not just use Windows Live (or Bing). Same things all in one app.
http://www.discoverbing.com/mobile/index.html
if you're in love with the iphone UI, then that's one thing. But I'll be real... damn if I understand why one would want to install multiple apps that do simple tasks, when you can have one that does multiple tasks.
To each his own, I s'pose.
Sean D. said:
As it's been said, Shazam, and Pandora already exist. I have Shazam MusicID running on my Kaiser on T-Mobile, and it works just fine.
For the other two, why not just use Windows Live (or Bing). Same things all in one app.
http://www.discoverbing.com/mobile/index.html
if you're in love with the iphone UI, then that's one thing. But I'll be real... damn if I understand why one would want to install multiple apps that do simple tasks, when you can have one that does multiple tasks.
To each his own, I s'pose.
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Click to collapse
the Shazam Application is free? i believe i had heard somewhere it was pay per use.
i believe you underestimate the capabilities of both the Movie application and the "where to eat" application i am asking about. unless Bing can make totally random suggestions about restaurants wherever you are by taking your current GPS location and looking around.
i feel like i will get Smited here for posting this, but this is what i am talking about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTTIpM4L12s
also has reviews, menu, etc. i understand you can find places to eat with a simple google search. but that doesnt work when you have no idea where to start.
with the movie application you have the ability to read reviews, watch trailers, find show times at each theater, location and buy tickets. also has a normal TV guide. but i do not use that often. or can you easily do all this through the internet browser or other means?
i fear i may sound like a "Fanboy" for the IPhone, but i really am tired of the phones lackluster hardware and generally slow performance, and the less then appealing battery life.
but i do like these applications VERY much. they may only do one thing, but they do them extremely well. that's why i want to know if they are available on this platform because i am very interested in getting a Touch Pro2 when they become available.
As is typical with iphone vs WM, the iphone apps are going to look prettier. But the same things do, or can exist on WM.
I got Music ID here in the development & hacking section, for free. And it works fine on my Kaiser.
I *think* you can get movie reviews on Bing... I THINK! But I know you can find them, and get info about them, and where they're playing.
But it can get you random restaraunts from around you based on your gps, or cell tower location. You can find "restaurant" by typing, or speaking it.
for movie showtimes at nearby theateres, you can lookinto "flix" or "cinemo." flix is for the uk, franc, germany and soon to be for italy and spain too. Cinemo is for the US and Canada. They don't let you buy tickets, but they provide useful info. Both are hosted on this site, so look for it in the development and hacking forum.
orlandojumpoff said:
for movie showtimes at nearby theateres, you can lookinto "flix" or "cinemo." flix is for the uk, franc, germany and soon to be for italy and spain too. Cinemo is for the US and Canada. They don't let you buy tickets, but they provide useful info. Both are hosted on this site, so look for it in the development and hacking forum.
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Click to collapse
thanks for the info!
finger friendly is rare in winmo as of now...
one more question, when using google maps, (or TomTom, etc) can the program pull address information from contacts?
say im in google maps can i just start typing "current location" in the "start" and have it figure out i mean where i am now? and for the "End" can i just start typing my contacts name and have it automatically enter my contacts address?
and when viewing a contact, can i just click their address and have it automatically pull up Google maps (or any other navigation application) and show me that location?
crazy talk said:
one more question, when using google maps, (or TomTom, etc) can the program pull address information from contacts?
say im in google maps can i just start typing "current location" in the "start" and have it figure out i mean where i am now? and for the "End" can i just start typing my contacts name and have it automatically enter my contacts address?
and when viewing a contact, can i just click their address and have it automatically pull up Google maps (or any other navigation application) and show me that location?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can do the former, though not quite as you describe. You click the menu, go to Options and choose "Look up Contact". It then lists your contacts that have address info and will pop up the map to them and give you several options.
The latter you can't do with the built in Windows contact manager, but their might be a 3rd party one that can interface with Google Maps, I don't know.
crazy talk said:
i believe you underestimate the capabilities of both the Movie application and the "where to eat" application i am asking about. unless Bing can make totally random suggestions about restaurants wherever you are by taking your current GPS location and looking around.
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Click to collapse
I think you're underestimating the Bing app. It's not just a web search. The Bing mobile app uses GPS or cell towers to locate you, and then offers local search for restaurants, gas prices, theatre / showtime listings, local businesses. It also gives local weather and traffic reports, AND has a GPS mapping app to give you directions to anywhere you find. And it can even do location-based web searches, pulling up wikipedia articles or news items about places you're near. And the whole thing is built with a finger-friendly interface (although it's still rough around some edges). Heck, it's even got voice-command -- click the "speak" button, say "sushi," and it'll list the nearest sushi places.
Bing might not have every last feature of Urban Spoon or the showtimes app you're talking about, but it certainly has a lot of power of its own.
FloatingFatMan said:
You can do the former, though not quite as you describe. You click the menu, go to Options and choose "Look up Contact". It then lists your contacts that have address info and will pop up the map to them and give you several options.
The latter you can't do with the built in Windows contact manager, but their might be a 3rd party one that can interface with Google Maps, I don't know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am using the standard contacts app and have options for locating in Google maps, Bing (formerly live search), and Garmin XT. Garmin has a sub menu with locate and route to.
If you are running Google maps and you don't have 'locate in Google maps' in the menu for contacts let me know. I would like to find out what put it there.
By the way, as floatingfatman said, you can look up conacts in your mapping app. I can do this in Google maps, Bing, Garmin XT and Destinator.
Midomi is alot easier on the eyes than Musicid. As far as UrbanSpoon I wish there was an app for Winmo, but Bing is the next best thing. With emulators and all is there anyway to get it working on Winmo devices?
I have the touchpro2
midomi is a seems to be a really good app and it's free. it gives you the option to listen to a sample of the song, search youtube or buy the song. you could also hum or sing the song to start the search.
This is much more finger friendly than past versions of winmo. I'm sure it's still not up there with the iphone as far as that goes but it's getting a lot closer.
After all the great things I've heard about iPhone's marketplace, I was going to get one until AT&T did their little data plan switch.
Then I got the EVO, hoping because Android was a developing market and there were thousands and thousands of apps, it would compare to iPhone's.
Not even close. I'm scrolling through, trying to find cool apps, and most of them seem to be utility apps or some such stuff. Most of the reviews on these things seem to indicate the apps are buggy or the developer has stopped support.
Where are all the cool apps like iPhone has? Are they in the paid section? Even those seem to be buggy from what I'm reading in the User Comments sections. How come iPhone gets great voice to text support (I know people who use this function a lot) and Android doesn't? Corporations are putting out iPhone apps left and right and Android has practically nothing. And the ones they ARE putting out, again, seem buggy.
Seems like a great waste to me.
Someone please clue me in and show me what I've been missing.
The AppStore has an 18 month head start on the Android Market, not to mention there are like 5 times the number of iPod/iPhones then Android devices right now. So it makes since that developers have up to this point been putting a majority of their time and resources into the AppStore. But, with 160k+ Android activations a day and growing Android WILL take over iPhones at some point in the future and we'll really begin to see a ton of developer support as the platform continues to quickly grow.
Ya what he ^ said. Android will eventually be big enough where developers cannot ignore the potential customers. As long as google doesn't fragment the market too much, you should see the big developers start dual releasing software (similar to xbox and ps3).
great voice to text supprt, you know thats google's software tht does that on the iphone
I got a apple fanboy at work and he is always saying my market sucks and I ask him to show me some of his life changing apps, and he has nothing cool
norkoastal said:
Ya what he ^ said. Android will eventually be big enough where developers cannot ignore the potential customers. As long as google doesn't fragment the market too much, you should see the big developers start dual releasing software (similar to xbox and ps3).
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Click to collapse
maybe is apple drops that part of EULA where an apple developer must be only dedicated to apple development or be dropped from the app store, much like our facebook app is far behind the apple one. the new team has to catch up
nbakid2000 said:
After all the great things I've heard about iPhone's marketplace, I was going to get one until AT&T did their little data plan switch.
Then I got the EVO, hoping because Android was a developing market and there were thousands and thousands of apps, it would compare to iPhone's.
Not even close. I'm scrolling through, trying to find cool apps, and most of them seem to be utility apps or some such stuff. Most of the reviews on these things seem to indicate the apps are buggy or the developer has stopped support.
Where are all the cool apps like iPhone has? Are they in the paid section? Even those seem to be buggy from what I'm reading in the User Comments sections. How come iPhone gets great voice to text support (I know people who use this function a lot) and Android doesn't? Corporations are putting out iPhone apps left and right and Android has practically nothing. And the ones they ARE putting out, again, seem buggy.
Seems like a great waste to me.
Someone please clue me in and show me what I've been missing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What are you looking for in the Market? What do you want an App to do for you? You cannot just get into to the Market to 'look for cool apps'. It will be very helpful if you narrow your search, that way you can get the help you want. The Android Market cannot be blamed for corporations that put out sub-par or buggy apps. Take your issues up with their developers.
If you depend solely on users comments to make your decision about an app, you might end up not trying any. Since Android phones have varied models and specifications there are bound to be different experiences from different users. Even for users with the same device, the App may appear a bit buggy because of the modifications they have made to their phones.
There are different communities of users that review Apps and offer feedback that may be useful. AppBrain is a good one to try. Good luck.
I try not to read too much into user comments because some of the people either dont know how to use the app or are trying to use a brand new app on an outdated android phone/os
BrianDigital; said:
I got a apple fanboy at work and he is always saying my market sucks and I ask him to show me some of his life changing apps, and he has nothing cool
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Click to collapse
Cause there is nothing that cool lol. I've been using AppStore for 2 years going now and still use it with my iPad. To me, the only thing the AppStore does better are the games. That's expected because they have been out longer. I have yet to try any android games so I could be wrong. Most of appstore apps are gimmicks and a waste of space. They do have a good selection of very good programs, as does the android store. Android store also has more free programs that are better I've noticed. Even the great programs that cost money are cheap. The biggest thing is that you can refund within 24 hours on the android store.
This is a personal preference. I like good useful programs where I wont delete it 5 mins later. Now I think about it, most of the apps I used on the iphone and iPad now are from Cydia.
what is a "cool app" for you? once you can define it as a boolean string you'll be all set.
until then its not unlike the iphone store...tens of thousands of apps. of that a huge number are redundant and or outdated. a good chunk are crap or useless. that leaves a bunch of needles in the haystack.
1) try a site like appbrain.com or apps.androidtapp.com (they may provide better search options)
2) do some google searches for "top EVO apps" or "Best Android apps" etc. that helped me quite a bit.
what is cool to one person is irrelevant crap to another.
DraginMagik said:
what is a "cool app" for you? once you can define it as a boolean string you'll be all set.
what is cool to one person is irrelevant crap to another.
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Click to collapse
exactly. sounds like you just wanna **** around on your phone to me. I AM T-PAIN!!!!!!!!!
Well you can always check out the "cool app" thread in this same section that might help a little btw
brown14you said:
What are you looking for in the Market? What do you want an App to do for you? You cannot just get into to the Market to 'look for cool apps'. It will be very helpful if you narrow your search, that way you can get the help you want. The Android Market cannot be blamed for corporations that put out sub-par or buggy apps. Take your issues up with their developers.
If you depend solely on users comments to make your decision about an app, you might end up not trying any. Since Android phones have varied models and specifications there are bound to be different experiences from different users. Even for users with the same device, the App may appear a bit buggy because of the modifications they have made to their phones.
There are different communities of users that review Apps and offer feedback that may be useful. AppBrain is a good one to try. Good luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I never blamed Android for the lack of apps situation. Where did I do that? I said I was disappointed with the Marketplace. At no time did I say, "I'm upset with Android and Google for not having any cool apps."
What do I want in apps? I dunno. I've never owned an iPhone so I'm not sure exactly what's out there....except I've heard that EVERYTHING is out there.
A couple of things missing off the top of my head:
Kevin's Smith app
Redbox
Blockbuster
The rest, I guess, is just cool stuff...whatever that may be. How about some nice apps for alcoholic beverages? The ones I've found (from the user reviews) don't seem that great. Again, I haven't tried them but if most people say an app isn't very good, I tend to believe it.
How about an app for cooking recipes? How about a great music player (which I haven't found yet, but MixZing seems to be pretty decent)? How about an app that compares prices?
Shazam (a music program) is supposed to be on Android. It's not. It looks like they pulled it, even though their web site advertises it.
The thing is, I don't know what app I need until I see it. I've never experienced it, so I don't know what I'm missing. *shrug* I just know I must be missing SOMEthing, based on everything I've ever heard or read about Apple's store.
On the subject of voice to text...what's a good app for that? Why can I not get something up to par with what iPhone has? Or can I?
There is a redbox app. Google shopper would be good for prices i think. Blockbuster is about to go out of business anyway lol. Shazam is definitely there because i just searched and it showed up. vlingo voice is a good voice to text even though android has that pretty much built in already. The music player that comes with the evo is good enough for me so idk about the others. Whats the kevin smith app?
I'd like to know where the free Redbox app came from. It wasn't there on my device a while ago. I just downloaded it.
Shazam is now showing up for me and I've done multiple searches over the past day for this thing. It's downloading as well.
The Kevin Smith app is found here: http://www.denvog.com/iphone/KevinSmith/index.html
nbakid2000 said:
I'd like to know where the free Redbox app came from. It wasn't there on my device a while ago. I just downloaded it.
Shazam is now showing up for me and I've done multiple searches over the past day for this thing. It's downloading as well.
The Kevin Smith app is found here: http://www.denvog.com/iphone/KevinSmith/index.html
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Click to collapse
shazam has been there since last year or longer because i bought the hero when it came out last october and had shazam. just give it time. the "cool" apps will show up
Not sure what you mean by voice to text app
Maybe I am misunderstanding what you are asking. Voice to text is part of the android 2.1 operating system. When you hit the microphone it will put text into whatever you are using such as an e-mail or a text message. There is no need for an app for it as it is built into the operating system
Voice to text? Already supported out of the box.
However, you can get Vlingo from the marketplace. It costs quite a bit, but if you're a dedicated voice user, it can be good for you.
You have to look around. Google is your friend.
What do you want? Cool games?
Hungry Shark, Raging Thunder II, Exzeus Arcade, Slimeball Speedway, Tiki Towers, Caligo Chaser, and Gameboid are just some I can think of off the top of my head. Gameboid will multiply those games because of ROMS.
A PSx emulator is in the works by the same developer.
Google's apps themselves impressed a lot of people that I showed my phone to.
Google Sky Map, Google Goggles, Google Earth, Google Maps, etc.
Other free apps that are top knotch:
Pandora, Facebook, Twitter, Shazam, Barcode Scanner, LED Light, Handcent SMS, TV.com (awesome cbs shows right there!).
Ringdroid (make ringtones ON YOUR PHONE), QIK video chat, Fring (for skype).
There are also apps where you can download backgrounds and ringtones from a wide variety.
So... just look around. Google helps.
And lastly, a lot of developers are looking into developing for Android. With all the new Android phones and Android users, things are working out well for its marketplace. For example, with the release of the HTC Evo... former palm pre, blackberry, and winmo users came. Hardly any people moved from android to android in that case.
Pretty much all of those apps you listed I have installed on my Evo via the Market.
patelkedar91 started a great list but here's a list of my favorite apps
acv - comic viewing app if you have downloaded comics(reads cbr files!)
doubletwist - media app that plays music and video, also has a matching desktop client for syncing your android phone, much like itunes to the iphone
epicurious - recipe app
fxcamera - camera app that has some awesome built in effects
layar - augmented reality app that shows points of interest through the camera
urbanspoon - can't decide on where to eat? just set preferences and shake to get a restaurant
Photoshop.com Mobile - basic photo editing app
transdroid - app to control torrent clients from your phone, including adding torrents
zombie, run! - one of the funnest apps on my phone, uses gps location to simulate a zombie apocalypse. shows zombies as red dots and you have to avoid them and make it to a location you set, makes biking to school a lot more interesting
there's a lot more, keep looking and lurk these forums like crazy. good "cool" apps are recommended here a lot
I don't even understand the point of this post. You didn't have an iPhone, but just 'hear' that it had it lots of cool apps. Then come to Android just looking for random 'cool' apps but can't articulate what you are looking for. Sure, the iPhone had 65 different fart apps, so it has an advantage there.
I had the iPhone 3G, then 3GS, then went to the Droid and now the EVO. I don't have a ton of apps, but I use quite a few. When I moved to the Droid in November, there were only two apps that I had with the iPhone that weren't available on the Android Market; SlingPlayer and Alarm.com. Both of those have since been released on the Market too.
Shazam has been available the whole time except for some reason that it disappeared a week or so ago. Music player? Well, Android has one built in and the EVO has HTC's version. On the Market, there is Mixzing and DoubleTwist. Blockbuster? Who friggin cares. Blockbuster will be out of business before long and Netflix is better anyway. The Netflix app is coming soon to Android.
I will admit that the games were a bit better on the iPhone, but outside of that I don't miss anything about the iPhone or the App Store.
[DISCLAIMER] I'm a total noob to Android developing. If you see anything and say "C'mon pghahaha, that was so basic, you totally goofed", keep in mind I have basic knowledge of the basics, so this app won't be perfect. I'll be updating it with much, much more abilities. I'll probably goof up in this post, so it might be closed. I would appreciate constructive criticism, but not necessary. I just hope you like Aurora, even though it can only do 3 things right now
Aurora is my new voice assistant, and ***my first app*** (designed with MIT App Inventor, so I'm even more a noob than you might think!). It only does 3 things as of now.
Take pictures
Call contacts
Locate your parked car
It's important that you exactly say the command, because it has a set list of responses.
Taking Pictures Just say "take a picture" and it will open a camera. Take that picture, and once you confirm it, it will save this picture to your Gallery (under Pictures) and it will show the picture under the assistant.
Calling Contacts To call someone, literally say "call someone" and it will open a number picker, and dial your selection. (Coming soon: call the contact entirely with your voice! Sorry I didn't nail that down in the beginning, but keep in mind, this is a Pre-Alpha!)
Locate Your Parked Car When you park your car, open Aurora and say "park my car". It will tag the car's location. Then, when you are wherever, and you need to get back, say "where is my car" and it will open Google Maps (with directions input), and you should be able to go from there!
Using App Inventor limits exactly what I can do, and what the app actually looks like, so I know it isn't great. If I can find a way to get the apk in to Eclipse, I can do much better, so, yea. Well, if you have anything to say, just reply, and enjoy.
VERSIONS:
A1.0- Alpha Release. Comes with camera, phone, and car tracker.
(Note: long press mic to get to the "About" screen. Honeycomb users [3.x.x] be wary: this app may appear incorrectly.)
So I saw quite a few old threads about this but nothing in the past two months and a lot of new options have popped up. So far I've tried "Assistant", the new Nuance Dragon assistant, google now, and Sherpa but they all fall a bit short in one way or another.
The things I'm looking for are pretty basic, imho...
-Auto-play all of an artist when I name it, or a song when I name that. Preferably search my music library first and then default to google play if it's not in my library.
-Link straight to the navigation app when I ask for directions and not just google maps, I'm too spoiled to decipher the route when I could get turn by turn directions.
-Answer my random questions "Name of classy goose liver" - "Foie gras"
I'd prefer for it to have intuitive speech recognition and a little bit of sass, but these are secondary to the three above.
Anyone know of an option that covers those three? If you have an option that you love but doesn't cover these feel free to post what you like, although I don't really care about calendar/appointment management.
Easily add reminders to Google Now without having to speak up or typing queries.
We can add reminders to Google Now by typing or speaking something like "remind me to..." followed by the description and time. But if we have to add reminders again and again this becomes a hassle to type or speak long sentences like this. This is where this Assistant for Google Reminders comes to the rescue!
This Assistant helps you to input your reminders in a much friendlier and easy manner, then it makes the perfect query and opens the default Google Now where you will only need to press the blue tick icon and you will be done.
This saves you the hassle to perfectly speculate the query which Google would want to listen to. You can also add a home screen shortcut on your device if your launcher supports it.
The Assistant does not act as a reminders app, but rather as a mediator app between the users and the Google Now reminders. The reason it uses Google Now reminder mechanism is that Google Now is a product made by Google and hence updated and supported regularly. Plus you get all the benefits like sync, availability, etc.
DOWNLOAD FROM PLAY STORE:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.appsbyusman.reminderassistant
DISCLAIMER: This app or the developer thereof is not associated with Google Inc. at all. The purpose of this application is to assist the users in using the reminders functionality provided by Google Now. It is consistent with the legal requirements.
Like this , not sure about the icon though bro
Good work
Thanks! I downloaded the icon in a hurry, didn't give much thought to it. I made and published the app in only few hours
In your work on this, did you discover a way to create a shortcuts to the list of reminders? Both the google app and Inbox can interface with the reminders, but creating a direct shortcut has proven difficult.
Cptnodegard said:
In your work on this, did you discover a way to create a shortcuts to the list of reminders? Both the google app and Inbox can interface with the reminders, but creating a direct shortcut has proven difficult.
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I haven't looked into this, but there must be a definite Activity (screen) for this. Maybe the ROM developers would know.
usman farhat said:
I haven't looked into this, but there must be a definite Activity (screen) for this. Maybe the ROM developers would know.
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I've looked, but havent been able to find one that works. Found one mention of the Google app having shortcuts on 7.1.1, another mention of the reminder creation confirmation screen sometimes offering to place a shortcut, but that's the extent of it.
Cptnodegard said:
I've looked, but havent been able to find one that works. Found one mention of the Google app having shortcuts on 7.1.1, another mention of the reminder creation confirmation screen sometimes offering to place a shortcut, but that's the extent of it.
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Click to collapse
If the app allows to create shortcuts, then someone might be able to get it. Not that it may happen soon, but it is there in the device, so it doesn't look entirely impossible.