Almost all Android phones these days come equipped with the Google Assistant. Users can trigger the assistant by long pressing the home button on their phone and ask their inquiries. But, not all Android users use Google Assistant that much and often end up triggering it by mistake. Some people who do use it might prefer the hotword “Hey Google” or “Okay Google“, or type their queries instead of speaking.
Now, if you use Google Assistant all the time and trigger it with the home button that’s totally fine. But, if you don’t use it that often and/or willing to get rid of it then there is a solution to that. Now, you can replace Google Assistant with any other app that you use all the time. By replacing Google Assistant with another app, you can use the long press home button shortcut to trigger that app instead of the assistant. This allows you to easily access your favorite app or app service right from the home screen or from any other app.
Also read: Free Android App To Skip Tracks Using Volume Keys Without Root
How To Replace Google Assistant with Any App on Android?
To replace the Google Assistant, you are going to need an app called Assistant Mapper. This app allows you to map any app or app activity to assistant trigger shortcut (long press on home button). To do that, first, install the Assistant Mapper on your Android phone from the Google Play Store by following this link.
Once the app is installed, you have to make it the default assistant app. To do that, go to phone’s Settings -> Apps & Notifications. Then, click Advanced to expand more options and select Default apps. In the Default apps settings, click the Assistant & Voice input, there you see the Google app set to be the default Assistant app. Now, click on that and choose Assistant Mapper to replace it.
After making the Assistant Mapper your default assistant app, when you use the assistant trigger shortcut, it won’t do anything initially. Now, you have to assign it an app activity from the Assistant Mapper app. When you open that app, it lists all the app services installed on your phone. From this list, you can search or look for the desired app service and assign that to the assistant shortcut.
For the sake of this tutorial, I assigned Shazam to the assistant shortcut. Now, whenever I long press the home button, it opens up the Shazam app instead of Google Assistant.
You can assign any app activity as per your convenience. You can assign the YouTube search activity to directly search for videos on YouTube or Twitter new tweet activity to directly create a new tweet.
Download Assistant Mapper from Google Play Store here.
Wrap Up:
Assistant Mapper is a handy app that puts up the assistant shortcut up for personalization. It allows you to use the assistant shortcut to trigger any desired app activity right from the home screen.
