Creating IFTTT recipes to help consolidate and automate tasks is one of the biggest joys of having a smartphone or being surrounded by smart devices, and an APK teardown of the newest beta version of the Google app reveals that consummate IFTTT users may soon be able to create new commands with the help of Google Assistant. The teardown reveals code snippets such as “Teach your Assistant”, “Another way to say it”, and most tellingly, “Create IFTTT Action”. The app seems to be gearing up to allow users to create commands via both a visual interface and by voice command.
While the integration is reportedly not showing up for any users just yet, it looks like the pieces are starting to fall into place. Since there isn’t much in the way of code pointing to establishing an IFTTT account or integrating at more basic levels, it would seem that users will have to already have established an IFTTT account and done the basic setup before they’ll be able to use the upcoming command creation functionality. The code being there, of course, is not a definite guarantee that the feature will actually make its way to users, or when that may happen if it does.
As a bonus, this version of the Google app seems to include some code that points to making authentication of purchases made via Google Home a bit easier, with a password, fingerprint, or the like seeming to only be required if the system detects buying behavior that’s somehow out of step with the user’s usual tastes. While this could be things like hearing a child’s voice bark an order, or a normally stingy individual splashing out on a beastly gaming PC and VR setup, no concrete examples were laid out in the code. It should be noted that all of these finds were only in the newest beta version of the Google app, which requires a signup as a beta tester in the Play Store. The features’ code seems to be mostly if not all there, which means that Google could flip the switch on these features at virtually any time.