Among virtual assistants, Google's has always been quite powerful when it comes to searching the Internet, but now it has added some new features that are especially useful for Android smartphone owners. That's because the Assistant now works more closely with Android smartphone apps, allowing users to not only search more easily within apps, but also to control them with simple voice commands.

These new features are rolling out to select apps today and will become more widely available as developers upgrade their apps. Here's how it works.

The first new feature is the ability to use Google Assistant to search for and execute commands within apps installed on your phone. For example, if you say, "Hey Google, start a run on MapMyRun," or "Hey Google, search for pizza on Yelp," the assistant will open the app and display the relevant page.

To test these new features, Google sent me a pair of Nike Adapt sneakers. In other words, if I wanted to loosen or tighten my shoes, I could say, "Hey Google, tighten my shoes with the Nike Adapt." Sometimes it worked, but my phone (a Samsung Galaxy S8) consistently failed to connect with the shoes.

Other commands worked better. For example, when I said, "Play Van Halen on Spotify," the assistant opened the app and started playing Jump through my phone. Interestingly, when I then closed all the apps and just said "play Bruce Springsteen," the assistant knew to open Spotify instead of the other music apps. It can even search for specific songs or playlists.

Another, perhaps more useful feature is that Google Assistant can create shortcuts to functions within apps, saving you the trouble of opening the app and selecting the action you need. Thus, if you say "Hey Google, start running" without specifying an app, your phone will open the app you want and begin your running session.

At this time, shortcuts can only be added to a smaller group of about 30 apps and functions. Apps that currently allow shortcuts include Citi, Dunkin, Paypal, Wayfair, Wish, Uber, Yahoo. Mail, Nike Run Club, Spotify, Mint, Fitbit, Walmart, Postmates, Snapchat, Twitter, etc.

Even among these apps, there are quite a few that allow you to create shortcuts right now. For example, when I used the aforementioned "Start Running" command, the assistant only gave me the options of Adidas Running and Runkeeper.

Shortcuts appear in the Google Assistant window and are pre-populated based on what a particular app can do with Google Assistant. To activate a shortcut, simply select it. If there is an available shortcut, you can edit the command phrase to your liking. In other words, if you do not want to say "Hey Google, tweet," you can set it to say "Hey Google, twitter."

The Fitbit app allows you to create shortcuts to look up nutrition and exercise statistics, but nothing more.

Twitter with Google Assistant allows you to create new tweets, view Twitter messages, and create direct messages, but again there are limitations. When you say "Hey Google, Tweet," the Assistant opens Twitter, but it is up to you to press the button to start a new tweet. Similarly, the assistant will launch Twitter and display the DM page, but you must then choose who you want to send a message to.

Of course, it is difficult to determine which apps can use these services. However, when I ask Google Assistant to show me the shortcuts, it shows me the shortcuts available for all the apps installed on my phone. Thus I discovered that while I could get nutrition and exercise statistics from the Fitbit app, I could not ask Google Assistant to do anything more than that.

At this time, these new features appear to only work when talking to Google Assistant on a smartphone; we tried speaking a few commands to the Assistant via the WearOS smartwatch, only to receive a "I don't know" response. So while there is still a lot to be worked out with the latest Google Assistant feature, it has the potential to make smartphone use easier and faster.