Who would need to press the power button to actually turn off or restart the device, right?
The setting to change this is also pretty much buried under Settings -> Special Features -> Gestures.
(Yes, I have no idea why the Assistant is in German when the phone is set to English either 🫠)
It was annoying having to change that setting so I could shut down the phone and install GrapheneOS.
why the Assistant is in German when the phone is set to English
Because Google just has no idea how to deal with multilingual people. Google Assistant’s ability to understand and respond to prompts that are in either of my languages is completely unpredictable, even for the language the UI is displaying in. Another issue is that you apparently just cannot in any way control what language call screen will use to talk to a caller. Such a good feature rendered entirely useless for me because of that.
Not just new installations. It also happened on my phone when Android was updated. Thanks OP for also posting where to fix this!
Another in a long line of messing with user interface things on updates, without any prior warning to the user. And if you even get a changelog at all on the update prompt it’s always just vague bullshit like, “Bug fixes and usability improvements,” without explaining what those “improvements” are supposed to be.
In unrelated news, the last major update on my Moto G changed the incoming call screen from swipe up to answer, swipe down to reject to swipe left to answer, swipe right to reject. What is this, fucking Tinder now? And don’t come at me about the “gesture” setting in the dialer app options, either. Yes, I am aware of it. The only options listed there are now “horizontal swipe” and “single tap to answer.” Why any rational individual would want to inflict the hell that is the latter option on themselves is unknown to me.
This kind of horseshit is why boomers and old people are terrified of updates and drive us IT nerds up the wall by perpetually ignoring and dismissing them. Because when you change the user interface choices people are used to behind their backs and without warning, as far as they’re concerned you just broke their device.
Cut it out.
Last update changed the phone buttons around for no reason I can discern. Not sure that’s ever happened because I was shocked, never had to relearn the buttons.
i really liked that swipe up to answer too
That dialer change was evil. I have switched to Fossify Phone now and use that as a dialer. The Fossify apps are amazing, they also have a gallery and messages app, so Google’s proprietary BS isn’t neccessary.
The best explanation I saw several years ago: Large tech companies drive change through competing individual teams and projects. So some manager pitched a half-assed idea, somehow convinced upper management to go with it, got developers to heroically implement it, and might have gotten some bonus for doing so. It doesn’t matter if there was no value as long as some decision maker thinks there is (or does not care, or numbers were fudged anyway).
It is literally change for the sake of change.
Android is getting really terrible in general, whoever they have designing the UI is not good at their jobs. The thing I hate the most is now you have to open the side menu to open your contacts in the contacts app. It’s so annoying. Add several seconds to every instance of making a call.
Samsung just improved my user experience by removing “silent” from the available options when pressing the volume down button for notifications/ringer — now I need to open a menu to press a touchscreen button a couple times, instead of being able to quickly set my phone to silent through tactile feel without looking.
thank you so much for improving my user experience for me, Samsung, this is really what I’ve been missing for the past decade
As others have said Samsung has been like this for a while so they may be copying it from there.
If its the same as Samsung, holding power + volume down should bring up the power menu.
I actually like the button being mappable to something else, gives me more options, I do think they should have the default be the old behaviour though, maybe with a popup on the first activation to tell you that you can change it.
I have mine set to Bixby so I can quickly set timers and reminders without needing the always on voice detection, double press opens camera.
More options and customisation possibilities is always better, but using it to force another peoduct is scummy :(
So the shortcut that’s always been for screenshots is now for power, but only for powering it down. That makes total logical sense and isn’t inane at all.
Holding power + volume down brings up the power menu Pressing power + volume down takes a screenshot
Though other comments point out that there isn’t any consistency between manufacturers
Oh wow, they made it even more fuckin stupid by adding different functionality for long press vs short press.
Better than iOS which Konami coded or ctrl-alt-deleted its way to vol up, vol down, power
If its the same as Samsung, holding power + volume down should bring up the power menu.
On my NP1, it’s Power and Volume Up. So much for consistent behaviour between different Android devices…
it’s almost like they should have just gone with both volume buttons, that way it doesn’t matter if one manufacturer uses volume up and volume down and the other manufacturer uses volume down and volume up
What the shit? Pressing and holding power and a volume button used to be for force shutdown. It’s been that way for over a decade! Fucking hell.
Is that a nothing?
Yes, the Nothing Phone 1. I reset it, because I switched to a Unihertz Titan 2 now and only use it as a USB webcam. :)
Oh, you can change that? I thought this was just how it is now.
I turn off my phone every night, so I changed that back as soon as I found out.
They also messed with the navigation bar… Before, instead of having three buttons, you could have it display three lines at the bottom that you used by swiping upward. They did away with that, so now your only options are 1) the three regular buttons that are too easy to accidentally press and take up too much screen real estate, or 2) one line that is harder to use combined with a back functionality enabled by swiping from the left ir right sides of the screen. It’s not only slower to use than the three lines, but it also results in accidentally going back when trying to scroll horizontally.
They could have left an option to keep the three lines, but no, they love reminding us we don’t really own the devices we pay for >:|
If Samsung, install Good Lock and use the Navstar plugin to bring the functionality back.
That’s what I did.
Thank you, I will definitely check those out.
It also seems I can root my phone, but I’d rather not go that route until absolutely necessary (e.g. some future update that breaks side loading).
Next step of their Always On (always spying) wet dream.
Yes took me a while to figure this out. Was months ago after an update.
Just hit it today when setting up my brother’s phone. It is so stupid to do it this way.
Yup.
It’s annoying.
you can change it
My post literally says so :D It’s still a dickhead move to put the assistant in there as the default when setting up the device and hiding the option under “Gestures”.
It’s all fuckin stupid shit but I love that it’s in German. That’s the icing on the cake.
Came default on pixel for me. Also can’t remove or move the Google search bar.
That’s been around for a while sadly, you need an alternative launcher. I’m grandfathered into Nova but most people are moving towards Lawnchair, I think.
I use Lawnchair for that.
There’s a PC program called Android Debloat, gives you a list of apps on your Android with comprehensive information about what they do, and you can blitz the shit off your phone. Tip 1: Always install a keyboard before removing Gboard. Tip 2: Removing the Google app that forces the search widget also removes Gemini usability, the news sidebar, and others. I know - what a loss
Give ADBAppControl a try. It’s like a GUI for adb debloating and then a bit.
I go to F-Droid to check this out and before I even search I have another useful tool -
aahh, but GrapheneOS
It just asked me what it should do when I press the power button. Pretty painless, 🤷. End of the day it’s just another win for GrapheneOS though.
