Google wants more people using Google Assistant — this is how Assistant has improved so much over the last few years. As part of the process of getting new and improved ways for people to interact with Assistant Google has added one of the new Android 11 chat bubbles to its functionality.
According to an APK teardown by 9to5Google Google has placed code inside the newest Google app that suggests that the new Bubbles are coming to Assistant. Although having the code in the app can suggest a feature is being readied for release it does not mean that it will always arrive for the general user.
According to the teardown there are two strings that describe the new functionality with a tutorial showing how you can “Tap to talk to your Assistant” and also a string about how the Assistant Bubble can be dragged down to the bottom of the display to be dismissed — as you would be aware, this is how bubbles and chat heads are dismissed.
At the moment the feature does very little with tapping on the chat head launches the standard Assistant panel at the bottom of the screen. We suspect that the full functionality of the Assistant Bubble will wind up being a lot more than this because just that seems fairly useless to the average user. How many people have a long conversation with their Assistant such that a Bubble would be required to keep track of it?
It is not clear when this feature will be released but we suspect it will be a Pixel 5 launch feature, assuming it arrives later in the year. Hopefully Google adds some form of actual useful functionality to this feature when it is released.
It’s really e necessary ? I don’t understand it
I received a notification last night “you usually turn off your lights at this point”. Can imagine the chat bubble will come up with equally Clippy-like levels of suggestions.