Google Denies Battery Drain Caused By Google Now

Google’s brilliant virtual assistant Google Now debuted to rave reviews in late 2012, and now the company is combating a rumor that the popular program is massively draining users batteries.

Google Now delivers various tidbits of information including weather, driving directions, meetings, travel times, sports scores, and other forms of immediate interactions.

The application debuted for iOS devices this week and almost immediately users began complaining about a problem with the apps use of location based services. According to complaints Google Now is causing location services to stay on and drain users’ batteries.

Google Now already doesn’t allow for push notifications for iOS users, which makes it less attractive than its Google Android counterpart.

Google Now was inevitably built with a battery drain issue. Because the program gives users information before they even know they need it, the program is constantly working in the background. Apple, unlike Google Androi,d minimizes what apps can do when in the background.

In a statement released to Lifehacker, Google revealed:

“Reports that Google Now drains battery life are incorrect. We understand people’s concern about seeing the Location Services icon stay on when they use Google Now. Many apps that keep the icon on actually do drain the phone’s battery because they require very accurate location. (For example a navigation app has to run your GPS all the time to keep you from missing your turn.) Google Now is built very differently: it uses cell towers and wifi hot spots for much lower battery impact.”

“We extensively tested Google Now on iOS for months and didn’t see reports of significant battery impact — we would encourage you to try it in the Google Search app for a few days and we don’t expect you to see significant impact on your battery. If you are seeing a problem, please do tell us (just tap feedback in the app settings). We take user feedback very seriously.”

Google Now is part of the Google Search app for iOS and can be downloaded for free.