{"id":24819,"date":"2024-02-02T04:01:29","date_gmt":"2024-02-01T22:31:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/hey-google-i-was-using-that-button\/"},"modified":"2024-02-02T04:01:29","modified_gmt":"2024-02-01T22:31:29","slug":"hey-google-i-was-using-that-button","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/hey-google-i-was-using-that-button\/","title":{"rendered":"Hey Google, I was using that button!"},"content":{"rendered":"

[ad_1]\n<\/p>\n

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Every time another Google app or feature bites the dust \u2014 even a small, relatively inconsequential one \u2014 I get annoyed. Really annoyed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Here\u2019s the thing: there are Google Assistant-equipped devices in three rooms of my relatively small house: living room, bedroom, and office. Which means, unfortunately, that when I say \u201cHey, Google\u201d out loud to my phone, I am just as likely to get a reaction from one \u2014 or more \u2014 of those three devices. (Yes, I know that\u2019s not supposed to happen and no, we haven\u2019t been able to fix it yet.) And they sometimes offer different answers simultaneously, which makes things even more confusing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This is what I got when I hit the mic icon in Search.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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To avoid this unfortunate state of affairs, I\u2019ve gotten into the habit of simply tapping the little microphone in the search bar rather than saying \u201cHey Google.\u201d That way, the phone is the only device responding to my voice command. (And when I\u2019m out in public, it means I don\u2019t have to say the embarrassing phrase \u201cHey Google\u201d out loud where other people can hear me.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Whenever a software manufacturer drops a long-term feature \u2014 and while Google is one of the most egregious violators here, it certainly isn\u2019t the only one \u2014 it invariably claims that the feature was \u201cunderutilized,\u201d or not really important, or is being replaced by a much better, if not-quite-the-same app. Sometimes, I wish they\u2019d be honest and say things like, \u201cWe\u2019re laying off a bunch of people, including those who were monitoring this particular app\u201d or \u201cWe just found out there\u2019s a nasty security problem here and we don\u2019t want to get sued\u201d or \u201cScrew this, we\u2019ve got a shiny new<\/em> project.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Of course, the company in question will usually proffer some kind of substitute. For example, when I want to access Google Assistant on my phone, Google suggests that I now say \u201cHey Google\u201d (just no, for the reason cited above) or long-press the power button.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Except that I\u2019ve got a muscle memory for hitting that damned mic icon, and it\u2019s going to take some time for me to get used to not using it and switch to the power button. To take care of that \u2014 at least for now \u2014 I\u2019ve moved the Google Assistant icon into the dock on the bottom of my screen, just above where that mic icon is. So when I automatically go to hit the mic, and I remember that I can\u2019t use it to access Google Assistant anymore, I just have to move my thumb up a tiny bit to do what I need to.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Eventually, I know, I\u2019ll get used to it not being there. And after all, this is just a small irritation. Among a mess of others. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n[ad_2]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[ad_1] Every time another Google app or feature bites the dust \u2014 even a small, relatively inconsequential one \u2014 I get annoyed. Really annoyed. Here\u2019s the thing: there are Google Assistant-equipped devices in three rooms of my relatively small house: living room, bedroom, and office. Which means, unfortunately, that when I say \u201cHey, Google\u201d out …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24820,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24819"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}