In the future, Google Assistant can only be used for activities which can be monetized with ads.
this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2024
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Ah I love when they remove features to improve my experience
The chocolate ration has been raised to 7 grams per day.
Google's getting worse, but I don't think this list has anything on it I use on my own Google Home devices and doesn't seem like a huge deal.
Here is the list:
spoiler
- Playing and controlling audiobooks on Google Play Books with your voice. You can still cast audiobooks from your mobile device.
- Setting or using media alarms, music alarms, or radio alarms on Google Assistant enabled devices. You can create a custom Routine that has similar - behavior or use a standard alarm.
- Accessing or managing your cookbook, transfering recipes from device to device, playing an instructional recipe video, or showing step-by-step recipes. - You can use Google Assistant to search for recipes across the web and YouTube.
- Managing a stopwatch on Smart Displays and Speakers. You can still set timers and alarms.
- Using your voice to call a device or broadcast a message to your Google Family Group. You can still broadcast to devices in your home.
- Using your voice to send an email, video or audio message. You can still make calls and send text messages.
- Rescheduling an event in Google Calendar with your voice. You can still schedule a new event.
- Using App Launcher in Google Assistant driving mode on Google Maps to read and send messages, make calls, and control media. You can still use voice control on Google Maps the same way.
- Asking to schedule or hear previously scheduled Family Bell announcements. You can create a custom Routine that has similar behavior.
- Asking to meditate with Calm. You can still ask for meditation options with media providers such as YouTube.
- Voice control for activities will no longer be available on Fitbit Sense and Versa 3 devices. You’ll need to use the buttons on your device to start, stop, pause, and resume activities. You can still voice control activities on Pixel Watches.
- Viewing your sleep summaries will only be available on Google Smart Displays. You can still ask for sleep details by voice on third-party smart clocks.
- Calls made from speakers and Smart Displays will not show up with a caller ID unless you’re using Duo.
- Viewing the ambient “Commute to Work” time estimates on Smart Displays. You can still ask for commute times and get directions by voice.
- Checking personal travel itineraries by voice. You can still ask for flight status.
- Asking for information about your contacts. You can still make calls to your contacts.
- Asking to take certain actions by voice, such as send a payment, make a reservation, or post to social media. You can still ask Assistant to open your installed apps.
So... I'm not sure why they can't leave existing functionality in, but I'm guessing it's for tech debt reasons. Maybe pretty minor use cases that probably take too much upkeep to maintain interoperability with other changing codebases (guessing the Google Calendar, recipe search), underused features (personal travel itineraries via voice), who knows, maybe even for privacy reasons (asking for information about contacts, sleep summaries, asking for previous Family Bell announcements).
- Playing and controlling audiobooks on Google Play Books with your voice. You can still cast audiobooks from your mobile device.
Downgrade.
- Setting or using media alarms, music alarms, or radio alarms on Google Assistant enabled devices. You can create a custom Routine that has similar behavior or use a standard alarm.
Downgrade
- Accessing or managing your cookbook, transfering recipes from device to device, playing an instructional recipe video, or showing step-by-step recipes. - You can use Google Assistant to search for recipes across the web and YouTube.
Absolute dogshit that doesn't vaguely resemble a substitute in any way.
- Managing a stopwatch on Smart Displays and Speakers. You can still set timers and alarms.
Whatever
- Using your voice to call a device or broadcast a message to your Google Family Group. You can still broadcast to devices in your home.
Downgrade
- Using your voice to send an email, video or audio message. You can still make calls and send text messages.
Downgrade
- Rescheduling an event in Google Calendar with your voice. You can still schedule a new event.
Downgrade
- Using App Launcher in Google Assistant driving mode on Google Maps to read and send messages, make calls, and control media. You can still use voice control on Google Maps the same way.
No clue what the difference is.
- Asking to schedule or hear previously scheduled Family Bell announcements. You can create a custom Routine that has similar behavior.
No clue what Family Bell is
- Asking to meditate with Calm. You can still ask for meditation options with media providers such as YouTube.
YouTube sucks
- Voice control for activities will no longer be available on Fitbit Sense and Versa 3 devices. You’ll need to use the buttons on your device to start, stop, pause, and resume activities. You can still voice control activities on Pixel Watches.
Downgrade
- Viewing your sleep summaries will only be available on Google Smart Displays. You can still ask for sleep details by voice on third-party smart clocks.
Punishing third parties for no reason by taking away features they had
- Calls made from speakers and Smart Displays will not show up with a caller ID unless you’re using Duo.
- Viewing the ambient “Commute to Work” time estimates on Smart Displays. You can still ask for commute times and get directions by voice.
Laughable "replacement". Having it visible is the whole point.
-Checking personal travel itineraries by voice. You can still ask for flight status. - Asking for information about your contacts. You can still make calls to your contacts. - Asking to take certain actions by voice, such as send a payment, make a reservation, or post to social media. You can still ask Assistant to open your installed apps.
Eh I don't care about these.
I don't use Google smart shit because I don't trust them with a microphone. But several of those are features people very easily could have purchased a device for. The cookbook one, as an example, is almost the entire reason you'd buy a device for your kitchen, and the suggested alternative is fucking offensive in how much of a pile of shit it is.
I disabled it on my phones. I've found it to be completely without value.
I'll probably switch to ChatGPT or something when they enable the feature to use it as a digital assistant.
I only use it to set reminders. Are they killing that too?
Don't tell them!
I tried to use it for reminders, like "remind me about the laundry in one hour", only to realize a few hours later that I forgot about the laundry. The reminder never appeared. Asking "where is my reminder, google?" didn't help.
They're removing a bunch of features that nobody wanted.
They could kill the rest and my experience would be improved even further.
Google killing more features like this makes me absolutely certain that they have no fucking idea what they're doing over there.
But this isn't a shock; they've been dumbing down the "Assistant" by slowly removing useful features ever since Siri pulled down the Assistant's Google colored skirts and panties and spanked it with her capabilities. Heck even Alexa joined in on the hazing, smiling smugly as she accumulates ability after ability, and being a literal voice powered "Buy it now!~" button.
I haven't used Google Assistant since like Android 7; where they were STILL removing features and adding more useless ones. Genuinely I can't understand why the layoffs had to cause these reductions in functionality unless they were also hiring 3rd world Mechanical Turks to transcribe and do all the work.
Even more frustrating is that the Assistant hasn't changed much besides bleeding off features every year, when they could've been working to correctly integrate AI into the Assistant, which would've made her 1000x more intelligent and useful.
I still remember how unhelpful Assistant is if you don't give her exactly the right command with exactly the right wording. Unlike Siri or Alexa, there's absolutely minimal effort to ensure smooth Natural Language Processing happens when it benefits the user.
It's curious to me if they could have deprecated and refused to support these features rather than take them out. They might run until they don't, ya know? When they did this last year and removed "let's play a game" my kid was pretty bummed that we couldn't have game show games on road trips anymore. I'm sure these things may disappoint some people.
When this happens it's often because a backend component gets rewritten and somebody decides that it's too much work to re-implement some features for the new backend. It's much easier to come up with a PR spiel for why removing the features is actually a good thing.
A bunch of stuff that's both convenient and mostly not a huge amount of complexity on the development side. Nice.
When Google Assistant first launched it couldn't do anything, not even basic arithmetic, without App & Search History enabled in you Google account. So I never used it and now I forget it exists.