Who would need to press the power button to actually turn off or restart the device, right?
The setting to change this is also pretty much buried under Settings -> Special Features -> Gestures.
(Yes, I have no idea why the Assistant is in German when the phone is set to English either 🫠)
i turned it off and set it to a swipe from the bottom corners of the screen, which makes a lot more sense
Not just new ones. Last month my mom asked for help because she could no longer turn off her phone. I checked the settings and the power button had been assigned to the assistant.
I noticed that and also noticed how they swapped out the assistant for for Gemini AI bullshit that doesn’t work right so you can’t tell it to turn on a light or generally to do anything and have it actually do it correctly.
Every time my phone gets an update I have to go and switch that shit back. I honestly believe they’re trying to get me to buy a Linux phone.
Next step of their Always On (always spying) wet dream.
Same. On my stock Pixel it defaulted to hold the power button for assist. Which I immediately disabled and never looked back.
This was coupled with the power menu being added as a button to the notification shade.
I imagine it was in response to Apple when they switched to having the Siri button.
On the Nothing Phones is it just a press?
You should install GrapheneOS and never have to fuck with Gemini again…
I want to. Literally the only thing stopping me is !147
Don’t use your personal device for work. I refuse to do that because my time off is mine. There’s no reason for work to be invading my personal life.
Another in a long line of messing with user interface things on updates, without any prior warning to the user. And if you even get a changelog at all on the update prompt it’s always just vague bullshit like, “Bug fixes and usability improvements,” without explaining what those “improvements” are supposed to be.
In unrelated news, the last major update on my Moto G changed the incoming call screen from swipe up to answer, swipe down to reject to swipe left to answer, swipe right to reject. What is this, fucking Tinder now? And don’t come at me about the “gesture” setting in the dialer app options, either. Yes, I am aware of it. The only options listed there are now “horizontal swipe” and “single tap to answer.” Why any rational individual would want to inflict the hell that is the latter option on themselves is unknown to me.
This kind of horseshit is why boomers and old people are terrified of updates and drive us IT nerds up the wall by perpetually ignoring and dismissing them. Because when you change the user interface choices people are used to behind their backs and without warning, as far as they’re concerned you just broke their device.
Cut it out.
Samsung just improved my user experience by removing “silent” from the available options when pressing the volume down button for notifications/ringer — now I need to open a menu to press a touchscreen button a couple times, instead of being able to quickly set my phone to silent through tactile feel without looking.
thank you so much for improving my user experience for me, Samsung, this is really what I’ve been missing for the past decade
The best explanation I saw several years ago: Large tech companies drive change through competing individual teams and projects. So some manager pitched a half-assed idea, somehow convinced upper management to go with it, got developers to heroically implement it, and might have gotten some bonus for doing so. It doesn’t matter if there was no value as long as some decision maker thinks there is (or does not care, or numbers were fudged anyway).
It is literally change for the sake of change.
Android is getting really terrible in general, whoever they have designing the UI is not good at their jobs. The thing I hate the most is now you have to open the side menu to open your contacts in the contacts app. It’s so annoying. Add several seconds to every instance of making a call.
That dialer change was evil. I have switched to Fossify Phone now and use that as a dialer. The Fossify apps are amazing, they also have a gallery and messages app, so Google’s proprietary BS isn’t neccessary.
i really liked that swipe up to answer too
Last update changed the phone buttons around for no reason I can discern. Not sure that’s ever happened because I was shocked, never had to relearn the buttons.
why the Assistant is in German when the phone is set to English
Because Google just has no idea how to deal with multilingual people. Google Assistant’s ability to understand and respond to prompts that are in either of my languages is completely unpredictable, even for the language the UI is displaying in. Another issue is that you apparently just cannot in any way control what language call screen will use to talk to a caller. Such a good feature rendered entirely useless for me because of that.
I hope everyone who works for google gets turned into tadpoles by a witch
Or preferably by us pressing the power button
I hope much worse things happen to them.
And Sundar Prichai has to watch as it gets progressively worse, with him being the worst of all.
It was annoying having to change that setting so I could shut down the phone and install GrapheneOS.
you can change it
My post literally says so :D It’s still a dickhead move to put the assistant in there as the default when setting up the device and hiding the option under “Gestures”.
It’s all fuckin stupid shit but I love that it’s in German. That’s the icing on the cake.
Maybe Google is learning from Samsung how they bind Bixby to the power button.
Just one big incestuous sewer orgy of anti-consumer practices!
I heard Google sent out emails to outlook customers suggesting they switch to Gmail when azure went down last week. A tongue in cheek response to edge asking folks to leave chrome.
This timeline blows.
How is this anti consumer? Just because you don’t like a thing doesn’t make it anti consumer.
Edited to add, everyone hated that.
You don’t think replacing the single most universal function of an electronic device with their ad delivering spyware is anti-consumer? Fuck bud, what would you consider anti-consumer?
replacing the single most universal function
For quite some time now, Apple and Samsung have had the shutdown menu behind a multi-button press (Lock + Vol +/-). In Apple’s case, it’s always required more than just the lock button.
If anything, this is Google shifting to the ‘norm’, having multiple button presses be the default is ideal in preventing accidentally invoking the menu and shutting down the device.
Far as “anti consumer” is concerned:
ad delivering spyware
Relative to most consumers, this perspective has you in the minority. Your average consumer is going to engage with this feature, this change makes the feature as accessible as possible so that you can do something like send a text with a single hand / button press.
I have a first gen iPod Touch somewhere in a box here. It was press once to lock and turn off screen. Hold to get power menu.
Fucking hell, Samsung? I’m typing this on a Galaxy A52 5g. Same thing. Press power to turn off the screen and lock, press and hold for power menu. They did have press and hold for bixby about a year after I bought it, which I disabled, but it wasn’t out of box default.
I’ve never encountered this multi-button power shit you’re talking about outside of old click wheel iPods, or as the force shut down option (equivalent of ripping out the cord on a desktop PC, definitively not the normal/intended power off procedure).
Don’t know what you’ve been using, but this has not been some standard thing forever.
It’s not about like or dislike. I’d have almost no complaints if they added a button or a unique gesture to open it, like they already had with holding the home button (looks like they may have removed that shortcut functionality). Or how some phones made the lock/power button touch sensitive so a touch (not press) or a swipe over it opened the assistant.
But silently changing the function of a standard piece of UI/controls that have been standard for over a decade, and common on even slide phones since the fucking pre-smart phone era?
I’m shocked that anyone actually needs this explained to them.
It would rightfully be a news story if Honda’s newest car hid the window controls behind a settings menu, and what normally were window controls (still visually the exact same and located in the standard spot on the door) raised and lowered your seat instead.
That’s all without getting into the mess that is a company trying to artificially pump user numbers of one of their products, or my personal dislike of these “assistants”.
Internal emails from Google have become public through court cases which reveal that the rumor they were making search worse intentionally is true, and it was in order to inflate their ad impression numbers. There is no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt on this, and active explicit reasons to do the opposite.
Was it a silent change? No mention in update notes or any marketing material? I truthfully don’t know, as I don’t have a phone affected by this.
Also, not meaning to come off as defending Google. I’m not. I know they don’t need me to defend them.
Find me a consumer that likes it and perhaps I’ll reconsider
There are people commenting on this very thread that they use the button for things other than power, and I know a few people in my personal life which is a pretty small sample size that use the assistants on that button.
Does that justify changing its function without announcing it first? Because i had to Google how to turn off my god damn phone when it first happened to me, lol
Was it never mentioned in update notes?
Let me go back and check the documentation.
Could you explain your logic?
Michael_Jackson_popcorn.gif
Well luckily you can change this on Samsung phones. I’m assuming phones with the default bound to Google Assistant will be similar. Annoying and stupid, for sure, but at least you’re not locked in. I’m sure a lot of the general population won’t have the basic know-how to change it though, unfortunately.
yeah
Or Apple. It’s the same way with Siri.
Not just new installations. It also happened on my phone when Android was updated. Thanks OP for also posting where to fix this!
Going full in on the anticompetitive bullshit now? But why? Does Google have a deal with the orange Nazi against EU or what?
Came default on pixel for me. Also can’t remove or move the Google search bar.
aahh, but GrapheneOS
That’s been around for a while sadly, you need an alternative launcher. I’m grandfathered into Nova but most people are moving towards Lawnchair, I think.
I use Lawnchair for that.
There’s a PC program called Android Debloat, gives you a list of apps on your Android with comprehensive information about what they do, and you can blitz the shit off your phone. Tip 1: Always install a keyboard before removing Gboard. Tip 2: Removing the Google app that forces the search widget also removes Gemini usability, the news sidebar, and others. I know - what a loss
Give ADBAppControl a try. It’s like a GUI for adb debloating and then a bit.
I go to F-Droid to check this out and before I even search I have another useful tool -
How do you people lock your phone if not by pushing the power button? You just put it in your pocket like that?
it’s press and hold. Just pressing locks it.
That wasn’t made clear by the OP at all.
Just tested to make sure and it still shows emergency, restart and power off so I’m good for now 😄
I just found out thanks to your comment that mine changed to this Gemini bullshit on a long press with the UI 8 update I guess…
Double tap empty space on the home screen
That’s just extra steps, cause you need to go to the home screen first. Maybe I’m misunderstanding.
Screen button, turned on in settings, under accessibility. Two taps, screen is off.
