To Pixel or not to Pixel, that is the question.

[LurkerJ]

superchunk said:

LurkerJ said:

That's sneaky, it's bound to piss some Android manufacturers off, Google is witholding a software feature to leverage their hardware business. I guess Google doesn't care now that Windows Mobile is completely dead.

Nexus phones already have Assistant... its called Google Now (using voice to search/etc). This is exactly how Google handles new Apps that replace existing functionality. When they launched hangouts as a replacement to message, it came default on the latest Nexus and was an optional app later on other devices. I would expect Assistant to be the same. It will be defualt and replace all voice stuff from previous nexus phones as the default voice experience. In a few months it will launch as a stand-alone app you can install on your device... such as within Allo you can download now.

Rules have changed the moment Google decided to go into the hardware business. Not to mention, Nexus devices received no substantial marketing and they weren't entirely Google products either, less than 1% of Android devices sold were Nexuses. Google is leveraging their PIXEL smartphones using Google Assistant, that's not the same as before at all.