Google Assistant, the company’s smart voice-controlled service, has reportedly trickled to non-Pixel smartphones ahead of an official roll out. The digital assistant is Google’s answer to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, and was introduced first with the Google Pixel smartphones, which were launched in October last year. Last month, Google hinted at rolling out the digital assistant to Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P smartphones soon. However, the service accidentally showed up on non-Pixel devices with an alpha release version 6.13 of the Google app.
The alpha version of the app essentially incorporates the Google Assistant, allowing one to ask questions while making a search within the app. Built primarily as an exclusive service for Pixel smartphones, Allo messaging app, and Google Home smart speaker, Google Assistant can be launched in a fashion similar to the Google Now, with a long-press of the home button.
According to a report on Android Police, users who signed up for the Google app beta channel received the alpha release of the said version which worked on devices which are yet to officially get the Google Assistant. The early testers were able to run the assistant by holding down the home button on a Nexus 6P, running Android 7.1.1 Nougat and Samsung Galaxy Note 5 running Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow. After installing the version 6.13 of the app on these devices, an introductory message is flashed which reads, “New! You just got the Google Assistant.”
It is worth mentioning that not all non-Pixel devices running Android Marshmallow and later have received the update. Based on the report, only half the smartphones with alpha version of the app received the Google Assistant feature while the rest were still launching ‘Now on Tap’ service. Given that it is still an alpha version of the search app, it may or may not be the final product.
In addition to bringing the Google Assistant to non-Pixel smartphones, version 6.13 also brings improvements to the Google Search app. It has been improved for offline search and now allows one to add payment information to Google Assistant on Pixel smartphones. With the inclusion of the payment information, users will be able to simply instruct the assistant to make digital payments. Additionally, there is also a Lite mode to the Google Search app which allows for faster loading of web pages by consuming lesser data.
If you happen to be one of the curious minds, you can try your hands at installing the alpha version of the Google app. However, you must be aware that it is still a version in-the-making and may have abundance of performance issues. According to PhoneArena, the app is quite buggy. It is always advisable to test out such apps or features on a secondary device or take a full backup of data if anything goes wrong during the usage.
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