Google has started advising that from April 10th, they will no longer save shopping lists created from Assistant to Keep.
Ahhh Google, how you love to fracture, replicate and confuse your product offerings. It seems someone from the Google Assistant team either got transferred from or had lunch with someone from Google’s messaging division/s because they have decided to pull their shopping LIST out of their lists app and put it in a different app where there currently aren’t any lists.
When Assistant launched you could ask Assistant to add anything you wanted to a shopping list, this item would appear in Keep, where Google keeps their lists, under the heading “Google Assistant shopping list” this makes sense. If you go into your assistant list in Keep now you’ll be greeted with this.
If you follow the link you’ll end up on a Google Support page explaining that Assistant’s shopping list will now be moved to both the Google Home App and the Google Express App. Why? It’s likely an attempt, after announcing Google Express shopping through Home/Assistant earlier this year, to move entice users into using Google Express to make that transaction more apparent.
Of course Google Express is only available in the continental United States, meaning it’s not even available everywhere you can officially use Assistant so that’s a lot of people being disadvantaged in the attempt. So, for everyone outside the US we will get our lists moved into the Home app to make this look like anything other than a commercial decision.
When the list moves to Home or Express, all of the current contents will move over and any people you are sharing the list with will also be moved over. Of course, I now need to convince my wife to install and use another app. We use keep for more than just Shopping lists (or at latest we currently do, see below), so with this decision it adds another layer of adoption to what is arguably one of Google Homes best features.
The update is scheduled to rollout on Monday, the 10th of April so we’ll check back on the Home app then to see how this integration works. You would think that Google would have Learnt their lesson with Google Plus, in that forcing users to use a specific product to promote it isn’t ever a good idea. Hell, just give us the option of switching back, call me crazy but I like my lists in the list app.
To be honest I was hoping that Google would roll back their shopping list functionality via Assistant. In the old days (ie befoe Assistant) of Google Now when you added something to a list, you had the option of specifying which list. You could say “Ok Google, add fix fence to repairs list”, this would add the task of “fix fence” to a list I had of repairs I would promise to, but never actually, do!!
With this latest move, my hopes are all but dashed as it looks like Google is choosing the potential increase in sales from their home delivery service over actually delivering a great digital Assistant service.
What do you think of list being moved out of Google’s list app?
I really hate this change. There should be an option to revert the Shopping List feature back to Google Keep. I never use Google Express and have no plans to ever do so.
The change to naming the Shopping list to Google Assistant Shopping List was frustrating, this change infuriates me!
I hate it when a company hamstrings a perfectly good feature that benefits one product but stuffs up the one people use!
Google Keep itself and Google Now have strange frustrating integration too… I used to have a regular Sunday night reminder set for a few months… Deleted it maybe six-eight months ago from Keep once it was no longer necessary, but Google Now, on Sunday nights, STILL show it as something I should be aware of :/.
Let’s not forget that Assistant keeps the shopping list in a different one from what Google Now used to… :-
I used to love saying “Ok Google, add bread to my shopping list” while driving, and it would add it to Google Keep. I don’t know why Google brings out these cool functionalities, only to shelve them not long after.
While we’re at it, how long does it take them to get their act together and create one messaging app, rather than half a dozen fractured ones?
I see the reason but Google is taking away a great feature with the list in the keep. I used it for so many things not just shopping
As do I, and if you invoke google from the microphone button and not a long press on the home button you still can. In fairness you’ve never been able to use multiple lists from “Assistant”
*sigh*
Don’t like it, Google.
My wife and I used a shared list but it’s more for ‘better check that list before I leave’ for the random bits and pieces that we think to put on there. We add them manually in keep anyway, so as long as lists exist, no issue here. It does seem like a stupid decision though.
Boooooooooo!
I’m confused. The Google Home app? As in, the app formerly known as Google Cast? Did I read that right? Shopping lists will appear in the Chromecast app?
Wayno you are 100% correct my friend, shipping lists in the cast app! Again they are transitioning that app
This is another example then of Google having a “great” idea which could only possibly work in NA and forcing it around the world even though 95% of the world cannot even use the feature. Google really should have separate apps for NA, UK and Rest of World. Then we might get stuff that works.
I’m a Google fanboy but sometimes I have no bloody idea why!
Couldn’t agree with you more.
This is Google the Beta company. Poor management no direction and nothing is ever finished polished set and done, it is always changing and always frustrating.
Are they truly deliberately pushing people to Apple.
How will I get to my shopping list from my watch now?
Exactly
> What do you think of list being moved out of Google’s list app?
Google is known to have a dysfunctional corporate culture – my guess is someone in the assistant group hates someone in the keep group – and hence wants to cut them out of the limelight. Keep doesn’t do much, so it would be perfectly possible to subvert all its use cases via assistant.
I use ourgroceries app and have set it up via google home, it has issues with items that are two words, like “lite milk”
Saying “Hey Google, tell our groceries to add lite milk” just add milk to my list.
Moving shopping list out of keep, may make for a future with better integration with other apps like our groceries.
Unfortunately 3rd party integration seems to all fit into a standard pattern, it would be something like
Ok Goole
Tell our groceries
Add milk