The Google Assistant is not a new feature in many android phones. Over the years various users launched Google Assistant directly from their phones by either long-pressing the home button or by using key word such as “Okay or Google”.
However, Google now wants you to be able to use its Assistant tool at the press of a button. On Monday at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona,
Google announced that it would be bringing a dedicated button you can use to access Google Assistant services on its Androids sms platform (Messages).
Messages is androids defaults texting application through which users can send texts, share pictures and audio messages.
On its blog post Google added that it is now working with several Android phone developers to bring a dedicated button to more than a hundred million smartphones in the coming year.
A single tap will launch Google Assistant, letting you quickly ask it questions. A double tap will open Visual Snapshot, which is sort of a hub with curated information about your day, which varies based on time of day, location, and your recent interactions with the Assistant. Then you can long-press the button to trigger a Walkie-talkie feature, so Assistant will listen for a full query, this ensures that the Assistant listens to longer queries, which Google says is “perfect for emails or long text message.”
Google assistant will be programmed to offer “suggestion chips” that are relevant to your conversation. For a start, Google announced that its Assistant will automatically provide users with information about movies, restaurants, and weather.
If you and your friends are talking about a movie, Google assistant will pull a suggestion chip that might show IMDb ratings, a short review of the movie, and links that take you to Google Search and YouTube. When talking about weather the assistant will give you detailed information about your surrounding weather condition same applies to restaurants’.
“We’re trying to make the Assistant feel like it’s really a part of the phone, instead of just some app you go to,” Scott Huffman, head of engineering for the Assistant, said in an interview.
For now, the Google Assistant integration into the Messages app can only work in English, though it will roll out globally over the coming months.
