How to enable “Hold for Assistant” gesture from Android 12 on older versions

Google’s big (virtual) I/O developer conference was held last week, and at the show, we were given teasers for all the new services and features that the Mountain View company is working on. The most exciting announcement for us was the big reveal of Android 12, and while the first beta release was missing a lot of promised features, it still had a lot for us to pore over. One of the new features that landed in Beta 1 is a gesture called “Hold for Assistant”, but as it turns out, the gesture itself isn’t actually new to Android. In fact, a method to enable it has been available in Android’s codebase as far back as Android 10, and we’re going to show you how to enable it.

You’ll find the new “Hold for Assistant” gesture tucked away under Settings > System > Gestures > Power menu in Android 12 Beta 1. When enabled, the feature lets the user “trigger the Assistant by holding the power button.” Depending on your device, a similar gesture may already exist, but a setting to enable this feature is at least new to Pixel phones.

Left: Press and Hold the Power Button settings in OxygenOS 11 on the OnePlus 9. Right: Power menu settings in Android 12 Beta 1 on the Google Pixel 5.

Using a simple ADB shell command, it’s possible to change the behavior of the long-press power button gesture on Android 10 and Android 11 to mimic Android 12’s “Hold for Assistant” gesture. The reason this is possible is because Google added code to Android that allows the long-press power button function to be tweaked at runtime. This code change was merged to Android in 2019 and is present in Android 10, as I’ve confirmed on my dedicated Google Photos upload machine Google Pixel XL. All you need to do is modify the value of Settings.Global.power_button_long_press and Settings.Global.power_button_very_long_press, two settings values that override the framework-defined values of config_longPressOnPowerBehavior and config_veryLongPressOnPowerBehavior respectively. The possible values for “power_button_long_press” and “power_button_very_long_press” are defined in AOSP under the PhoneWindowManager class. You don’t need to read up on any of these pages, though, as I’ll demonstrate how to change these values and what you can change them to.

Enable Android 12’s “Hold for Assistant” gesture on Android 10-11

This method may not work on all devices running Android 10 or Android 11. While we do know it works on Pixel phones, we don’t know if the changes that OEMs made to Android have blocked this method. Your mileage may vary!

1. Install and set up ADB on your PC or LADB on your phone (Android 11 only). Either way works since all we need is access to Android’s shell interface with sufficient privileges to modify the Settings tables. (That means apps like “Material Terminal” off the Play Store won’t work unless you’ve got root access.)
2. Run the following command in shell to change the behavior of long-pressing the power button:

   adb shell settings put global power_button_long_press X

   where “X” is one of the following:

   • “0” for “do nothing” (ie. long-pressing the power button does nothing)
   • “1” for “global actions” (ie. show the normal power menu)
   • “2” for “shut off” (ie. power down the phone)
   • “3” for “shut off no confirm” (ie. power down the phone immediately)
   • “4” for “go to voice assist” (launches the old Assistant UI with a top-down dialog and “search a song” button)
   • “5” for “assistant” (ie. launches the default Assistant service as defined in “Default Apps” under Settings)
3. Run the following command in shell to change the behavior of very (3.5s) long-pressing the power button:

   adb shell settings put global power_button_very_long_press X

   where “X” is one of the following:

   • “0” for “do nothing” (ie. very long-pressing the power button does nothing)
   • “1” for “global actions” (ie. show the normal power menu)
4. In order to not lock yourself out from accessing the power menu (as is currently the case when you enable “Hold for Assistant” in Android 12 Beta 1, interestingly!), I recommend running the above two commands with the following values:

   adb shell settings put global power_button_long_press 5

   adb shell settings put global power_button_long_press 1

   this will let you launch the Google Assistant (or whatever other Assistant app you’ve set as default) with a long-press of the power button for 0.5s while also letting you access the power menu with a very long-press of the power button for 3.5s.

5. To revert back to the default behavior, simply change “power_button_long_press” to 1 and “power_button_very_long_press” to 0 or run the following commands:

   adb shell settings delete global power_button_long_press

   adb shell settings delete global power_button_long_press

In case you’re wondering, changing these values won’t affect the behavior of very, very, very long-pressing the power button (ie. force reboot the phone) which is a safety feature that can’t be disabled by the user.

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As we recently spotted, the Google App is preparing to add its own support for the “Hold for Assistant” gesture. The feature is currently not available, but the latest version of the Google App has added a “talk to Google with the Power button” screen that informs the user that they’ll be able to long press the power button to access the Google Assistant. Interestingly, this screen also tells the user they’ll be able to power off the phone by telling Assistant to “power off”, a function that currently isn’t supported by Assistant.

We don’t know exactly how the Google App will implement this feature — whether it’s limited to Android 12 or if Google will use the built-in functionality mentioned above to enable it on Android 10 and Android 11. The Google App is currently missing the requisite permissions needed to do the above, and it’s also missing the permission needed for it to trigger a shutdown or reboot on the device. We’ll likely have to wait for newer versions of the Google App to come out, but rather than wait, you can run the ADB commands in this article to get Android 12’s “Hold for Assistant” gesture right now!

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Gboard is rolling out a new design with some pill-shaped keys

Google’s new Material You guidelines are huge and deeply changed, and they not only extend to Android 12 itself, but they’re also going to extend to many other parts of the Google ecosystem as well. They give Material Design a much-needed facelift while also allowing for more customizability and design flexibility. One of the many Google apps that are getting facelifts based on some of these new features is Gboard. Gboard recently got released on Wear OS smartwatches, and we managed to spot a new UI revamp for Gboard that included automatic syncing with your wallpaper’s colors. Now, Gboard is officially rolling out at least some of those design changes.

The changes themselves seem to be pretty minor. Whereas the ?123 key had no outline and the Enter key was housed in a rounded rectangle, this new design introduces pill-shaped keys for both. This new design also extends to the spacebar. Pill shapes are prominent throughout the new stock Android UI, and here, they couldn’t look better. We first spotted this on a ZenFone 8 running Android 11, meaning that this new design is not exclusive to users running the Android 12 beta.

This new design, which uses pill-shaped keys for the ?123 and Enter buttons, is rolling out to users now, and it also doesn’t seem to be Pixel-exclusive. As we mentioned before, we got it on our ZenFone 8, for example, while we don’t have it yet on our Pixel 4 or Pixel 3 XL units. Since our ZenFone 8 isn’t running Android 12, we also can’t tell if the new “device” theme which themes Gboard based on your wallpaper is also rolling out. If you got it on your Android 12 device, let us know down in the comments.

If you want to check this out on your device, there’s not much you can do given that this is currently an A/B rollout. Updating the Gboard app on the Google Play Store might increase your chances, though.

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Samsung’s 128GB Galaxy Tab S6 Lite now on sale for just $330

Samsung released the Galaxy Tab S6 Lite last year as a slightly cheaper alternative to the Galaxy Tab S6, with an LCD screen instead of AMOLED and lower-power hardware. It has been succeeded by the Tab S7 and Tab S7 FE, but it’s still a great tablet for media streaming and light productivity. Now you can pick up the 128GB version for just $329.99 at B&H Photo, a savings of $80 from the original price. That’s also $20 lower than the current cost on Amazon.

This model of the Galaxy Tab S6 Lite has an Exynos 9611 chipset, 4GB of RAM, 128GB of internal storage, and a 10.4-inch 2000 x 1200 LCD screen. There’s also a microSD card slot for adding more storage, plus an included S Pen stylus for drawing. The tablet supports Wi-Fi 5 (sadly not Wi-Fi 6), Bluetooth 5.0, and USB Type-C for charging and data transfer. Samsung also included a feature on the Tab S6 Lite that isn’t available on the Tab S7 or Tab S7 FE: a headphone jack.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite (Wi-Fi)

This tablet has a 10.4-inch LCD screen, an included S Pen, 128GB of storage, and 4GB RAM. Not a bad deal at all for $329.99.

Buy at B&H Photo

Samsung confirmed last year that the Tab S6 Lite would get at least three years of Android OS updates, so it should receive Android 12 and 13. Even though it has largely been replaced by the Tab S7 and Tab S7 FE, it’s still a great purchase at this price.

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Google Photos adds a storage management tool ahead of unlimited backup changes

That dreaded day is about to arrive. Unlimited backup storage for Google Photos will be gone soon. Google has offered users free, high-quality backups for all photos and videos for probably as long as we can remember. And that was precisely one of the biggest selling points of the platform. Google even went so far as to offer free backups for full quality pictures rather than just high-quality ones as a perk for Pixel owners back when the first Google Pixel smartphones came out. Now, though, while you can still use Google Photos for free, you’ll be limited to however many pictures can fit in the 15 GB that is offered to all Google accounts for free, and if you need more than that, you’ll have to pay.

Google Photos is, however, adding tools to help free users have an easier time with that 15 GB of storage, or even for those paying for more storage. Google is adding a new storage management tool that can help you keep a check on your Google Photos storage and get rid of pictures that you might not want to keep. The app will analyze your pictures looking for things like blurry photos, screenshots, and large videos that you might not want to keep in the cloud. Then, it will give you the option to review and delete these pictures so that they don’t count against your Google account’s storage.

Google would also like to remind you of some other things they’re doing to make the transition easier. Pictures that you upload to Google Photos from today before June 1st will not count against your Google Storage even after that date and will still enjoy the unlimited benefit: it will only apply to new pictures you upload to the platform. After the changes come into effect, users will also get features like an estimate on how much will you be able to fit in your storage, easy options for getting more storage (the 100 GB tier costs $1.99 a month), and the “High quality” category will be renamed to “Storage saver” to differentiate it from full quality pictures, which already count against your phone’s storage.

If you have a Google Pixel phone, you might have better luck with unlimited backups. Users of all Pixel phones from the Pixel 5 down to the original 2016 Google Pixel will still get unlimited high-quality backups, and if you were promised unlimited, original-quality backups when you bought your phone (a benefit Google doesn’t offer anymore with new Pixel phones), Google will honor that as well. The original Google Pixels will get unlimited, original-quality backups indefinitely, the Pixel 2 lineup got them up until January 16th, 2021 (and they’ll still get unlimited storage saver backups indefinitely), and the Pixel 3 lineup gets them up until January 1st, 2022, after which you’ll only get unlimited storage saver backups going forward.

We’re bummed to see Google end unlimited backups, but these changes do go a long way towards providing greener pastures for free users that plan to keep using Google Photos.

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Microsoft is adding themes to the Windows 10 touch keyboard in Sun Valley

The touch keyboard has been a feature of Windows since Windows 8, but it’s never been terribly good. The problem is that it tends to respond differently to different kinds of apps, and it’s just not as seamless as modern operating systems like iPadOS and Android. Microsoft is set to change that with this fall’s Sun Valley update, which is the visual overhaul that we’re getting with Windows 10X being dead.

Sun Valley is a big visual overhaul of Windows 10. It’s going to focus on making the touch experience better. This is something that Microsoft really hasn’t done since it went way overboard with Windows 8. When Windows 10 shipped in 2015, the company scaled back a lot of its touch efforts in an effort to win back the faith of customers. Unfortunately, it was to the detriment of people who bought products like the Redmond firm’s own Surface Pro.

As spotted by Windows Latest, it seems that Microsoft is also making some big visual changes with the touch keyboard. You’re going to be able to set a background for the keyboard. In fact, if you look in C:\Windows\Web\touchkeyboard, you’ll find four designs, each with light and dark theme options.

That’s not all. You’ll be able to change the colors of the keyboard, change the size, and more, features that were spotted by Albacore. Unfortunately, while you can find the wallpaper images in File Explorer, you won’t find these new features yet.

If any of that sounds familiar, it should. A lot of this is pretty similar to what you might have seen from SwiftKey, which is a Microsoft-owned keyboard application on Android. SwiftKey has seen over 500 million downloads through the Google Play Store alone. With significant success on the Android end of things, it makes sense that Microsoft would bring some continuity between it and the touch keyboard. In fact, many would argue that the company needs to do that more often, such as with its Outlook apps.

The Windows 10 Sun Valley update is set to arrive later on this year. We should see it as part of the Windows 10 version 21H2 feature update that’s going to arrive in the fall. However, if you’re a Windows Insider, you should get to see it a lot sooner. As we know, new versions of Windows 10 are set to RTM in June and December, and then they head to the Beta channel the month after that for servicing until they’re released.

Sun Valley is more or less ready to go. Microsoft is just holding it back because it wants to show it off at a big event in June. Sadly, Windows still isn’t important enough to take the stage at Build, which takes place this week. After that big event in June, the whole visual refresh should be dumped on Windows Insiders, and then it should go to the Beta channel shortly thereafter.

It would seem that the folder of touch keyboard backgrounds discovered by Windows Latest was left there by Microsoft. As mentioned, Sun Valley is ready to go, but it’s being stripped out of Windows 10 preview builds. It would seem that some things remain.

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Here are all new emoji changes in Android 12 Beta 1

Another round of Android betas is here. During Google I/O 2021, Google introduced to the world a closer look at how Android 12, the upcoming version of Android, will look like and function once it’s out. While Android 12 has been out as a developer preview for a while, we hadn’t get seen the full extent of the UI changes that were coming with it. And Android 12 is one of the most outstanding updates in several years. It brings more radical improvements than even Android Pie, released in 2018, did, in terms of both functionality and looks. Material You is the most radical redesign to the original Material Design guidelines since they were first introduced back in 2014 with Android 5.0 Lollipop. There are other changes, however, that have gone unnoticed. One of them is a new emoji revamp.

Google revamps their emojis pretty much yearly, given that new versions of the Unicode standard are released every year with new emojis. However, Android 12 also brings some minor improvements to existing emojis as well to make them look more standard and in line with other emoji designs from other companies (design standardization is important to ensure the same emojis can convey the same message across all platforms regardless of who designed them). Some of these changes are immediately noticeable, while others are more minor and harder to notice at a first glance.

Some of these changes include the Coconut emoji now showing only half of the drupe, the Mount Fuji emoji getting rid of the water and the reflection, the Alarm clock and the Shopping cart getting more realistic designs, the Toolbox emoji being closed instead of open, the Smartphone emoji getting a revamped design, and so on and so forth. In total, there are over 389 emojis that have been revamped in Android 12, and most of these changes are made so that they don’t look out of place compared to emojis in other platforms.

You can check out the full Android 12 emoji design changes in Emojigraph if you want to check them out in closer detail.

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Verizon subscribers can now get free games on iOS and Android

Carriers often offer some pretty cool perks to get you to stick with them. Of course, with the smartphone market in the U.S. depending heavily on carriers and carrier support (something that has both pros and many cons), these carriers need these perks to stand out from the tight competition. Often, these perks come in the form of discounts on either smartphones or cell plans, but Verizon has an interesting one now, at least if you’re a smartphone gamer. Now, Verizon users can enjoy a free Google Play Pass subscription for getting free games (and perks on games) on the Google Play Store.

Verizon announced the new perks today. Google Play Pass launched in 2019 as a subscription model for the Google Play Store. Subscribers are able to play paid games and use paid apps, as well as enjoy other bonuses such as no ads or in-game purchases on some games. For $4.99 a month, it’s a pretty good value, especially considering that over 800 apps and games are currently available through Play Pass and are fully accessible for free once you’re a subscriber. If you’re a Verizon user and you’re on an unlimited plan, you can enjoy Google Play Pass at no added cost to you for 6 months. If you’re on either the “Play More” or “Get More” plans, the benefit is extended from 6 months up to 12 months.

If you’re an Apple user, Verizon has you covered as well—this benefit is also extended to Apple Arcade, Apple’s equivalent to Google Play Pass that also happens to cost $4.99 a month. Just like Google Play Pass, Apple Arcade gets you a catalog of free, ad-free games that are fully accessible to you as long as you’re a subscriber to the service. The same terms for free Google Play Pass also apply for free Apple Arcade.

Sounds good? If you’re a Verizon user on an eligible plan, check out the official blog post for more information.

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