Credit: https://9to5google.com/2019/07/26/google-replacing-voice-search/
A small but important change is being made to the Google Search app on Android. Apparently, the search engine giant is replacing the small microphone usually seen at the far-right corner of the search bar known as Voice search with the Assistant. I actually haven’t seen the microphone replaced on my Android yet, but some other tech bloggers have spotted it, and the curtain could soon be drawn for voice search on your phone.
I dare say that it was a pretty useful feature while there [well, I still do have it anyway]; but the Google Assistant is the future of search, and it is already taking its place [I guess].
The microphone icon that represents voice search is now being replaced with the g-shaped Assistant icon—and that is per 9to5google. The old “Say Hey Google” prompt has now been replaced with “Ask your Assistant.” Apparently, those are the only changes you would see for now as the old interface remains. Your search query will now be taken over or performed by the Assistant while the results will be opened in the slide-up panel.
The change as we were made to understand is regardless of the version of the Google app on your Android [the 10.24 stable or 10.28 beta]. If you are just like me who still have not spotted it on my phone, then you may have to keep your fingers crossed as it could pop up at any time.
Google is poised to make the powerful assistant more interesting for people who use it every day. A couple of months ago, the company updated the Assistant with better visual responses. What that means is that when next you ask the assistant a question, you going to get responses that show the standard Google Search layout. I am sure you know what that means—it responses will not only look like what you have in Google Search, but with ads as well.
Going forward, all responses will look exactly like what you would usually see if you query a search from your mobile browser. Prior to the tweak, the assistant would show a pared-down version in response to your queries.
While this minor tweak makes the assistant more attractive to users, it has a downside—you will start seeing ads. Maybe a few ads to kick off the new layout, but there are chances that Google may increase the number of ads as time goes on.
Google Assistant still won’t be able to provide you with complete answers to some of your search queries, but will instead show you links to various sources so you can learn more. “In these cases, you’ll see the full set of search results from the web. When relevant, these results may include the existing ads that you’d see on Search today,” Google’s Senior Product Manager Danielle Buckley said.
