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Changes we're making to Google Assistant (blog.google)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

We’re removing some underutilized features in Google Assistant to focus on delivering the best possible user experience.

Is this the non sequitur used nowadays to explain removal of features? "We're removing it to give you a better experience"??? That's bloody hilarious.

Be honest at least dammit. If you don't want to maintain a feature, because it's against your best interests, say so. Users are not stupid, and should not be implied to be stupid with this idiotic "it's for you lol" discourse.

(I don't even use Botnet Assistant.)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

To be fair in modern phones there are some features that if removed would make the user experience better. None of these are that though. This is just another case of Google being Google.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Yup. Google consistently gets rid of features or services that it deems unprofitable. And that's fine, really - as long as you don't pretend that you're doing it for the users.

To be fair in modern phones there are some features that if removed would make the user experience better.

I hear ya - for example, the SIM toolkit being able to send you pop-ups (phone providers use that to spam the users).

[–] stepintomydojo 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

"focus" is the key word. There are only so many resources, and if you have to spend time maintaining and testing features that don't get use, you can't spend those resources on the features that do get use, or on anything new.

Is the end result truly a better experience? Who knows, but the phrasing isn't quite as nonsensical as it seems.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

It's hard for Google to claim that they're focusing resources (e.g. dev time), given the list of features being removed. As one of the HN comments said, quite a few of them "seem to fall under the umbrella of "features that actually make the assistant an assistant"/connecting the assistant to other apps". In other words, integration - that's core functionality for an assistant and they likely know it.

[–] stepintomydojo 1 points 11 months ago

I would define the core capability as "takes audio, extracts meaning, matches to intent, executes intent". Everything else is an implementation of a specific intent/action. Some of them are likely fragile and depend on integration APIs that may be changing or going away.

Ultimately, yes, it is corporate-speak to sugarcoat what looks like a net negative for users at the current time with nebulous claims of a better future.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Let's not forget they terminated A LOT of the Assistant developers within the last week.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

“Only so many resources” when you aren’t one of the richest companies on the world pinching pennies.