Google Assistant has recently started rolling out on smartphones running on Android Marshmallow and above.
If you own an Android tablet, and plan on trying out Google Assistant, there’s some bad news. Google has confirmed to AndroidPolice that the wider Assistant roll-out does not include tablets. Recently, Google announced that Assistant will be rolled out on Android devices running on Marshmallow and above.
“The Assistant will be available on Android Marshmallow and Nougat phones with Google Play Services, this does not include tablets,” Google was quoted as saying. With 2-in-1s, which serve the purpose of both laptops and tablets, becoming popular, the market for standalone tablets has fallen through the floor. And at such time Google’s decision to not bring the Assistant feature to tablets seems to be fair.
Assistant is Google’s take on personal assistants like Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, and Microsoft‘s Cortana. The search giant first unveiled Assistant at Google I/O in 2016. The Assistant was initially preloaded on Google Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones, and then debuted on Android Wear 2.0 smartwatches. At MWC 2017, Google announced that Assistant will be rolled out on smartphones running on Android Marshmallow and above.
Google Assistant can be launched on an Android phone by long pressing the Home button or saying “Ok Google.” Google Assistant allows users to ask questions like weather information, distance from one place to the other, or route from source to destination, or even reminding users to read an email and more. Depending on the questions asked, Google Assistant provides relevant information and can perform functions accordingly. ALSO READ: Google Assistant might come to Apple iPhones too
Google Assistant also allows pulling up information from third-party apps such as WhatsApp. Further, by simply saying, “OK, Google, open Google+,” you can watch Google+ open. You can use this command to open other apps, including third-party apps, as well.
Apart from that, Google Assistant works on the company’s messaging app Allo as well. One can perform searches within the messaging app Allo. To trigger the search all you need to do is simply type ‘@google’. You can also converse with the Assistant even in Hinglish.