If your phone has Android’s Marshmallow and you have been using Google’s ‘Now on Tap’ feature, then you already know that without enabling the ‘Now cards’ you cannot use the feature.
But this is reportedly changing with latest Google Search app update. According to Android Police report (as first spotted by a Reddit user), the latest version 6.0.17.21 of the Google app for Android is changing the inter-dependency of the Now cards and Now on Tap functionality.
The changes are said to be on the server-side, and you can now disable the ‘Show all cards’ or ‘Show basic cards only’ option in the Now Cards section, which earlier would disable the Now on Tap functionality too.
Previously, Google had added two major features to ‘Now on Tap’ – which are image and text search support. Users can additionally get information of what they specifically select text in an article, app, email, or chat etc., and information about any image or photo that you have in Photos app.