this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2024
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"focus" is the key word. There are only so many resources, and if you have to spend time maintaining and testing features that don't get use, you can't spend those resources on the features that do get use, or on anything new.
Is the end result truly a better experience? Who knows, but the phrasing isn't quite as nonsensical as it seems.
It's hard for Google to claim that they're focusing resources (e.g. dev time), given the list of features being removed. As one of the HN comments said, quite a few of them "seem to fall under the umbrella of "features that actually make the assistant an assistant"/connecting the assistant to other apps". In other words, integration - that's core functionality for an assistant and they likely know it.
Let's not forget they terminated A LOT of the Assistant developers within the last week.
I would define the core capability as "takes audio, extracts meaning, matches to intent, executes intent". Everything else is an implementation of a specific intent/action. Some of them are likely fragile and depend on integration APIs that may be changing or going away.
Ultimately, yes, it is corporate-speak to sugarcoat what looks like a net negative for users at the current time with nebulous claims of a better future.
“Only so many resources” when you aren’t one of the richest companies on the world pinching pennies.