RGB3x3So we're just making Google Assistant even more useless now?
I noticed that Hey Google wasn’t working from the lock screen anymore. Pretty annoying.
downpunxxjust tried it from my lock screen and it came up first try
WashedOverI have a couple of phones in use. 1 never answers which is fine as I have a display too, but the other answers every time I can do that if you unlock your device first.
Yeah, after the update, it only answers if I unlock my phone. It’s not as convenient as it was before.
does that help with privacy at all? like, someone can’t pick up your locked phone and ask it “who did I recently call?” type of questions?
ChozoIf the voice doesn't match the account owner, it doesn't give out any personal info. If you use somebody else's Assistant, you can only get general search results or media payback, typically.
Carighan MaconarHonestly while Google is far ahead of Amazon here, they still recognize like 9 out of 10 voices as the “owner”. Just not 10 out of 10 like Alexa does, which is utterly useless and will happily recognize a cat meowing as its trigger and allow it to unlock the front door. >.>
thegreekgeekOh don’t worry, I’m sure it’ll be back behind a paywall soon enough.
I wonder if they did this due to security vulnerabilities and it’s just temporary? If not, it definitely makes it virtually worthless if they plan to keep it permanent.
Imagine still using google services in 2024
To me this is reading more like you can no longer turn those options off and they are automatically enabled. It literally says your bluetooth mic will be used by default not that you can’t use it through bluetooth.
Instead I understand this that basically everything you ask with the phone in your pocket will be “to answer this question you need to unlock your phone” (no, I don’t want to enable and train voice match)
WhiteOakBayouThey always make services worse before they end them. Maybe instead of incorporating ai they will release a new, not compatible with existing hardware, assistant and they are moving teams around.
It’s that they’re pulling resources away from assistant and preparing to launch Bard in its place.
If I understand this correctly in my use case Assistant will get worse in my car with a aftermarket head unit. The mic isn’t that great on the radio and I’ve had better luck using the handset mic instead.
redcalciumAm aftermarket head unit usually has an external microphone jack in the wiring harness where you can plug an extra microphone and place it somewhere near the driver (e.g. behind the steering wheel). Just buy a small microphone to upgrade the recording quality.
DojanThey’re slowly phasing out Google assistant in an attempt to kill it.
entropicdriftMy bet is that they’re trimming down its complexity so they can more easily/fully integrate it with Bard:
blog.google/…/google-assistant-bard-generative-ai…
Google usually replaces something well built out with someone very incomplete.
Maybe their game here is to trim it to hell so Bard doesn’t look so comparatively incomplete?
They’re not that kind of self-aware internally, from what I’ve managed to gather from interviews and blogs by ex-Googlers.
They think they’re rewriting stuff to upgrade in one way or another based on internal pain points. The fact is, external criticism, even from real users, just doesn’t penetrate the Google social bubble unless it’s coming from another giant corporation or major government.
Gutting it is more like, but yeah I gather they’re doing something like this.
They’ve rendered my Google smart speaker mostly useless except as a glorified hands free on/off switch for lights and tv. I used to be able to add items to my shopping list on Bring via voice command, and then suddenly one day it stopped working because they got rid of the tool that enabled that function (I’m not using their shitty lists app instead). I also found out that a tracking app that I use for noting down baby feeding times and diapers used to have voice command functionality until, you guessed it, Google axed that feature. It worked perfectly well before, I’m guessing they didn’t want to pay people to maintain it.
manielLooks like they’re removing the toggle making it always enabled, probably because nobody used the phone mic while connected via Bluetooth
In honesty, many of the changes announced seem to remove redundancies
Surely this is not related to recent major layoff in Google Assistant division, right?
I don’t understand why google is still worth so much money, they are a trash company that really isn’t trying to improve any of its products. It just periodically threatens its workers with job cuts and continues to serve up crap to its customers.
That’s because you don’t understand what business Google is actually in. They’re an ad company. They sell and serve ads. Everything else is just ways to better target and serve ads. All those “products”? Those aren’t revenue streams to them, they’re incidental costs of the ads that are their actual product.
I understand that, but they aren’t even that functional at doing that. They have ruined their products so much that it is threatening the ad value of the ads they sell I imagine. Google search is awful now and there is a very real chance people will stop using it for the first time in like a decade.
Those “ruined” products handily control huge chunks of the market. So from that perspective, they’re not “ruined” at all. They’re perfect.
Those “ruined” products handily control huge chunks of the market. So from that perspective, they’re not “ruined” at all. They’re perfect.
They control the market because Google, like most too-big-too-fail massive corporations, buys out any serious competitors and uses its dominant size to destroy the threat of competition before it can actually challenge them to make better products. Yes Google isn’t a monopoly in any of its industries but it doesn’t need to be since most of the large competitors they face are thinking the same way they are, why fight when we can enjoy our cake and do nothing?
Just because google products are widely used doesn’t mean they are good, it means people think they are the best option or can’t be bothered to switch which is a very very different thing.
My point was more that the products aren’t ruined from the perspective of their intended design. They’re not meant as products to be of maximum usefulness to the customer, rather to capture and control the largest share of the market.
they aren’t even that functional at doing that
They’re actually amazing at it. The measure of success for an advertising company is selling ad space.
FlashZordon“Oh shit we should probably charge a subscription for some of these features. Quick remove em so they don’t notice”
_haha_oh_wow_That reminds me, I should really check out Graphene OS…
Onii-ChanDo it, boi. One of us. One of us.
nullYes you should – but definitely make sure you know what you’re giving up (or freeing yourself from as the case may be) before diving in.
Google Wallet is probably the biggest deal breaker for most.
DeltaTangoLimaYeah, Google Wallet and my banking app. Secondarily, access to my work emails and Slack. I’m on the move so much during the day, my laptop rarely leaves my backpack sometimes.
CrackaAssCrackaSchwab app works for me on Graphene and that’s my main bank/stocks app. I’ve found I don’t really need all my credit card apps or my other bank app. I check once a day if that and just keep a bookmark. It hasn’t been bad at all.
𝕱𝖎𝖗𝖊𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖈𝖍They just laid off a bunch of people from Google Assistant
I’ve never used it, only clogs ram.
Another silent change in the latest update, at least on my phone, is that the assistant disregards media volume levels and screams its feedback on full volume. It wasn’t like this until a week ago. Restarting, playing with settings, adjusting the volume as she screams, nothing helps.
So if I ask her to do something late at night she goes, “OKAY I WILL DO WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU ASKED ME TO DO AND WILL ANNOUNCE IT TO THE ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD IN THE PROCESS”
“OKAY, BUYING MORE PREPARATION H”
They heard OpenAi wanted to replace Google assistant and instead of fixing the problems decided to kill it. Typical Google.
Downdate
Mine turned off completely and won’t even download to the phone. Whatever. Less shit is better anyway.
Possibly linuxHow google of them
Rabbit gonna kill these guys
katy ✨never forget
They want out and haven’t found a way to make money off of voice assistant. They’re just slowly killing it.
It’s part of why I’m pushing hard on my HA and hoping their voice efforts at least give me a solid voice experience at home.
HA = Home Assistant