That Pixel Buds Pro feature that just vanished? It’s not coming back
Google confirms that Touch and Hold has gone to live on a farm
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With thePixel Buds Pro 2hitting retailers in just a few days time, users of the Pixel Buds Pro have discovered a significant change to the way the earbuds handle notifications – andGooglehas now confirmed that the change is permanent.
The change applies to the touch-and-hold feature of both the first and second generation Pixel Buds Pro. And it’s interesting when you consider thatApplehas just addedhands and voice-free notification handling to its AirPods, because Google has basically just taken one of its own silent features away.
So what’s going on?
Why Google has changed the Pixel Buds Pro’s Touch and Hold feature
Touch and Hold enabled Pixel Buds Pro to get the Google Assistant to read out notifications without having to give thechatbota verbal command. But just over a week ago,Pixel Buds Pro owners started posting to Redditabout the feature suddenly stopping. Instead of the usual notifications, Touch and Hold responded with “Touch and Hold won’t read notifications any more” and asked the users to say “read notifications” instead.
Calls to Google support didn’t shed any light, because the support techs weren’t aware of any change. But Google has now confirmed that the option has indeed been changed – but it’s okay, because it’s gone to live on a farm where it can play all day with Google Reader, the Goo.gl URL shortener, Google Podcasts andYouTubeStories.
It seems that the feature has indeed ceased to be, and that more changes may be coming. Asspotted by 9to5Google, Google has now updated its Community pages with anoticeexplaining the change. “Based on your feedback, we are here to announce that we will be making the following changes to your Google Assistant notifications on Pixel Buds while we evaluate further changes to notifications,” Google says. “Assistant will no longer read unread notifications when using the press Assistant feature. Assistant will also no longer read unread notifications automatically and allow you to reply.”
The change is likely to be part of Google’s move towards Gemini, its AI assistant; as we said in our Pixel Buds Pro 2 hands-on, “Similar to howGoogle Geminiis unashamedly front-and-center within its latest phones, you’ll be able to use Gemini on Pixel Buds Pro 2, and it will effectively be the smart assistant here.”
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Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than a dozen books. Her memoir,Carrie Kills A Man, is on sale now and her next book, about pop music, is out in 2025. She is the singer in Glaswegian rock bandUnquiet Mind.
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