Goodbye Snapshot: Google now wants you to ask Assistant nicely for everything instead

I recently explored the idea of Google Assistant Snapshot being baked into Chrome OS and lamented that it had been missing on my Pixel 6 Pro and Pixel 4 devices for some time. Hell, I even created a mockup for it! Normally, you can access this visual and personalized Google Assistant card stack by swiping from left to right on your Android phone’s home screen and then by tapping the “Snapshot” drawer icon at the top of Google Discover, but for me and others, it had mysteriously gone missing on and off for a while now.

Welcome to the museum – today, we’ll be looking back on what Assistant Snapshot was!

I suppose now know why – Google is killing it off! Assistant Snapshot launched in 2018 and was responsible for aggregating all of your timeline data or information into one place and presenting it to you without your intervention so you had less to manage.

You may have realized that I stated in the title of this article that “Google Now” wants you to ask Assistant nicely for everything instead. I did that intentionally, as it used to be called “Google Now” before it converted over to Snapshot. The premise was the same though, and I truly do miss it, especially as I see what a full-screen ‘At a Glance’ widget could have looked like on Android 11 before it was scrapped.

Android Police actually captured a message at the top of their Snapshot yesterday that revealed that it was being sunset, and in its place, a ‘Learn more’ button links users to a help article showing all the ways they can ask for the same information Snapshot provided after it’s gone. You know, because users want to have to dig for things and ask highly specific questions instead of having awesome cards presented to them right when they need them without asking.

All sarcasm aside (just for a moment, I can’t be serious for too long), the support page says you should say things like “Hey Google, what’s on my calendar today?” in order to see upcoming events, manually visiting Google Finance to see your stock portfolio, and more. The whole idea of reverting Assistant back to just something you interact with via voice (unless you have an Assistant-enabled smart display, that is), is a bit silly if you ask me.

It’s always possible that Snapshot was simply underutilized by most people, but that can hardly be blamed on the user as Google has had it buried in the Discover page instead of out in the open since its inception. No one is going to use something that they have to dig for, right? Just be sure you don’t curse at your Assistant if it doesn’t understand you while you’re getting used to going back to the old way of doing things.