The Amazingly handy Google Assistant, which appeared on Siri, Cortana and Alexa
has long been available on most modern phones and tablets. However due to the nature of the Android ecosystem, a lot of older devices will certainly have the newer versions of Android that actually feature built-in
support for the Assistant absent. Fortunately, Google is bringing support
for its voice-activated helper to phones running Android 5.0 Lollipop
and tablets running Android 7.0 Nougat and 6.0 Marshmallow.
Lollipop launched back in 2014, which implies that we are all about old
phone operating system here (Android 8.1 is now standard on Google’s own
Pixel phones), but according to Google,
more than 26 percent of all Android devices still run some version of
Android 5.0 Lollipop. Just over 30 percent run Android 6.0 Marshmallow.
Still, with an update to the Google Play Services, even these older
devices will now get access to all the goodies that the Google Assistant envisions — and more than likely delivers.
If
you you are a proud owner of one of the older Lollipop phones, you should expect an
update relatively soon. It’ll only be available to users who set their
language to English in the U.S., U.K., India, Australia, Canada and
Singapore, as well as to those who have set their default language to
Spanish in the U.S., Mexico and Spain. Google says it will also roll out
to users in Italy, Japan, Germany, Brazil and Korea.
Due to the fact that the Assistant on these older devices isn’t bundled with
the launcher, though, you’ll have to launch the Google Assistant app
before you can ask your phone for directions, the weather, recipes or anything else which you so desire.
As for Marshmallow and Nougat tablet users, they’ll get the update
over the course of the coming week, as long as they are in the U.S. and
have set their language to English.