- A teardown of the Google app hints that you’ll be able to hold down the side button on Samsung devices to launch Gemini.
- The side button on Samsung devices can currently only launch either Bixby or the power off menu when it’s held down.
- This feature could arrive in the next version of One UI, which is set to debut very soon.
Samsung Galaxy phones and tablets, like most other Android devices, support both of Google’s voice assistant services. You can invoke either
Google Assistant or
Google Gemini on Galaxy devices by saying a hotword like “Hey Google†or by swiping inward from one of the bottom corners. You can’t, however, invoke them by pressing and holding on the power button (or “side button†as Samsung calls it). Fortunately, that could change in an upcoming release of One UI.
On most Android phones, pressing and holding the side button launches the default assistant service, even if it isn’t one of Google’s services. This is not the case on
Samsung phones, however, as they launch the company’s
Bixby service even if you haven’t set it as the default assistant. While Samsung does let you customize what pressing and holding the side button does, you can only change it to launch the power off menu instead of Bixby.
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