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Hey Google, I was using that button!

Google sunsets yet another useful — if small — feature.

To avoid this unfortunate state of affairs, I’ve gotten into the habit of simply tapping the little microphone in the search bar rather than saying “Hey Google.” That way, the phone is the only device responding to my voice command. Sometimes, I wish they’d be honest and say things like, “We’re laying off a bunch of people, including those who were monitoring this particular app” or “We just found out there’s a nasty security problem here and we don’t want to get sued” or “Screw this, we’ve got a shiny new project.” So when I automatically go to hit the mic, and I remember that I can’t use it to access Google Assistant anymore, I just have to move my thumb up a tiny bit to do what I need to.

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