Torque is Microsoft’s app that is similar to Google Now, save for the fact that it uses a flick of the wrist instead of saying “Ok Google” to initiate a search. While Torque so far was only available for Android Wear smartwatches, the company decided that it would be nice to make the app available for Android phones and directly compete with Google when it comes to voice search.
Even though saying “Ok Google” seems like an easy option when it comes to searching for something in a flash, a flick of the wrist or shaking the handset might be more productive. Torque allows for this gesture-based activation and to me it seems like the better option since voice recognition on some Android smartphones is unsatisfactory to say the least. Now that doesn’t mean that Torque will work better than Google Now, but it still is a good alternative for those of you who use these features a lot. Voice searching is becoming increasingly popular and it’s nice to have so many apps to choose from. Now, you can download Torque from the Google Play Store.
Torque uses a Bing voice search engine and will do the same things Google Now can do for you with its own Google voice search. Even though I’m more of a Google person than a Bing person, I’ve seen the second search engine grow enormously since I first tried it a couple of years ago. We suppose Microsoft decided to release Torque for Android phones because the Android Wear version of the app wasn’t as popular as the company had hoped it would be. If you are interested in getting Torque from the Google Play Store, all you need to know is that your Android phone has to run Android 4.3 or higher. Otherwise, you’re good to go.