Google App confirms work on “Raise to Talk” for Assistant’s Continued Conversation on the Pixel 4 ~ XDA

Wednesday, October 9, 2019

Google App confirms work on “Raise to Talk” for Assistant’s Continued Conversation on the Pixel 4

Pixel 4 leaks. We just can’t get enough of them. There haven’t been a lot of leaks this week apart from the iffy claim that Google will announce a 5G Pixel 4 at next week’s launch event, but we did a little digging to confirm a rumor that circulated last week. Recent versions of the Google App, the app that contains the Google Assistant service, confirm that Google is working on a “raise to talk” feature for Continued Conversation. Since we know Continued Conversation will debut on the next-generation Assistant coming with the Pixel 4, it’s safe to assume that Google is developing this feature for its next Pixel devices.

An APK teardown can often predict features that may arrive in a future update of an application, but it is possible that any of the features we mention here may not make it in a future release. This is because these features are currently unimplemented in the live build and may be pulled at any time by the developers in a future build.

Last week, 9to5Google claimed that Google was working on a new way to launch the next-generation Google Assistant. Called “raise to talk,” this method will let you invoke the Google Assistant by lifting your phone up. This adds another way to talk to the Assistant on the Pixel in addition to squeezing your phone or saying “Hey/OK Google.” Examining version 10.70.5.21 of the Google App, we noticed that the description for the Continued Conversation setting mentioned “lifting your phone” as a way to “ask follow-up questions.”

We also spotted an element ID named “get_more_element_raise_to_talk” that, when toggled, sets nga_setting_raise_to_talk to true or false. In the Google Assistant settings page on the Pixel 4, there could be a Continued Conversation toggle that displays this text. However, the “lifting your phone” part of the string was removed in subsequent versions of the Google App, so we don’t know if “raise to talk” will be available at launch.

We do know that the next-gen Google Assistant on the Pixel 4 will support Continued Conversation, though. The updated Pixel Tips app confirms that the feature will be present. We’ll have to wait 1 week to find out if “raise to talk” is also included, though.