There have been rumors that the Google Home will receive a major makeover soon. It is expected that the Home smart speaker with a touchscreen will be launched by the search engine giant. Recently, a closer look at the new Google app code supports the new Google Home speculations.
As reported by Android Police, the APK exploit of the beta version 7.14.15 of the Google app reveals a few hints on a multiple on-display features of an unknown smart speaker. A lot of possible features were found, including notifications, weather forecasts, interactive timers, YouTube video playback, a standard web browser, media galleries, Google Maps with appended business listings, plus a personalized Google Home screen.
Furthermore, the 7.14.15 beta code is said to made references to a voice command function known as Quartz. It appears that Quartz can be used for kitchen activities as the screen displays recipe details and timers. It is believed that Quartz will require a touchscreen device, suggesting that such device would be a Google Home speaker with touchscreen hardware.
Although, it is also possible that Quartz is just a software component needed to connect with a touchscreen device. To recall, Google Home recently featured a similar technology in which the speaker can cast bits of information to television sets.
Earlier in September, rumors have surfaced that Google is developing a home speaker device with touchscreen capabilities. It was reported by Tech Crunch that the touchscreen hardware will use the Google Assistant to make voice calls and similar tasks performed by Amazon's Echo Show. The rumors suggest that the Google Home with touchscreen will be codenamed "Manhattan."
There are no confirmed reports that Google will release a new Home smart speaker with touchscreen, although the Tech Crunch report predicts that a possible Amazon Echo Show rival will arrive in mid-2018. It will no longer be surprising if Google decides to launch their own smart speaker to take on Echo Show, given the growing competition in the said market.
