MWC 2019: Google improves accessibility of Google Assistant

Google has used the Mobile World Congress 2019 in Spain to increase the user’s access to Google Assistant, its own version a voice assistant and rival to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa. The Google Assistant button started slowly appearing last year and now it is becoming a feature on over 5 new devices. Besides this, Google is also adding support for several new languages as well as a dual-language speaker and is including Google Assistant to be apart of its default messaging app.

While a similar concept can also be found in some Samsung Galaxy phones that have a button dedicated for its own voice assistant, Bixby, the Assistant button was first added last year to LG G7 ThinQ phone. The button dedicated to Google Assistant intends to improve the accessibility as just one click will trigger the assistant. Double click will open up a visual snapshot of the users day including weather forecast and daily schedule while a long hold on the button will keep the mic on for the conversational mode. Remapping, that is giving the button a new feature, won’t be allowed by Google as it is the case with Samsung’s assistant button, but the feature can be disabled.

We already mentioned that the button will be available on some of the new Nokia phones, that is 3.2 and 4.2 models, but it will also appear on Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 5G and Mi 9, LG G8 ThinQ and K40 as well as some TCL and Vivo phones that will be released sometime this year. All in all, there will be around 100 million devices launched with the Assistant button.

When it comes to language update of Google Assistant, Google is adding support for seven new Indic languages: Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam and Urdu. Moreover, it is updating the support for dual-language speakers that allow users to switch seamlessly between few languages which was an excellent feature, especially for bilingual homes. So far, this feature was available between English, Spanish, German, French, Japanese and Italian but the list will be expanded with Korean, Hindi, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Dutch. 

In the process of expanding the accessibility to Google Assistant, Google started adding it as a part of other Android apps such as Google Maps. So far, Assistant feature in Maps was only available in the English language but the service will from now expand to all supported languages. Furthermore, it will add the Assistant to Android Messages app that will suggest quick replies but this feature will be available only in English at the moment. For those worried that this will mean Google will read all the conversations, the company assures its users that is not the situation as only the text of Google Assistant button chosen will be sent to the servers.

Google concentrated on improving the Android Messages app with several new updates ever since it was announced that Allo will be taken down. This will mean that Android Messages will become the primary texting app with support for SMS, MMS as well as RCS if it is compatible with the carrier. The Google Assistant update is expected to show up in the app during the upcoming months.

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