I don’t think I need to point out that Google Assistant isn’t on Windows or macOS right now. Google is pretty protective of its secret sauce appearing on rival operating systems – limiting it only to Android phones, tablets, Chromebooks, Android Auto, WearOS, and IoT devices.
However, that hasn’t stopped programmers from trying to adapt it to these other systems. A client by developer Melvin L. Abraham on GitHub brings Assistant right on over for use. Well, not ‘right’ on over – there are 30 steps required in order to get it up and running, and you’ll need to sign up for a Google Cloud account if you don’t already have one, so it’s a pretty hairy process.
Regardless, this is super cool, so we wanted to highlight it. Keep in mind that there’s a good chance that it gets shut down from all of the coverage it’s getting today. It was first reported by Android Police before it made its rounds, so if you want to try it out, do it before it’s too late!
Though it looks super nice, and you can read all about the technical details, courtesy of Ryne Hager’s run down, it certainly looks to be ‘in development’. For example, smart home controls are hardly implemented, and difficult to make use of given the interface’s lack of focus on them, and some Assistant commands simply don’t work yet. There’s no always-listening mode, Continued Conversation is choppy and inconsistent, routines don’t work at all, and the client failed to contact third-party services like Netflix and Spotify for Ryne when he tried.
When Google Assistant came to Chromebooks, I found myself using Google search via the ‘Everything button‘ more often though, and for many things, you may want to just open up a Chrome browser on your Windows or macOS desktop for search queries until this is developed further. It’s pretty neat though and has me wishing Google would play ball with its competitors more now that Microsoft is all about being a team player this year.
The image above shows the Unofficial Google Assistant client running on Elementary OS, but there are also photos on the aforementioned run down that show it operating on macOS and Windows as well. Are you brave enough to give this a shot, or is Assistant not very important to you with your desktop or laptop experience? I’m always curious how much or how little Chromebook users even utilize it. Let us know in the comments!
