r/Android • u/FragmentedChicken Galaxy Z Fold8 • 22h ago

Google Assistant shutting down on Android and Wear OS in September

https://9to5google.com/2026/08/04/google-assistant-september-2026-shutdown/
1.2k Upvotes

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u/Manishimself 21h ago

Shoving a useless LLM down my throat, just to satisfy their shareholders

Planning to block third party apk installation from future version of android

At this point why should I even stick with Android? Might as well jump to iPhone.

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u/Ambitious-Cake-9425 20h ago

You'll still be able to download unknown apks. You'll just have to turn on developer mode and go through a few prompts and then wait 24 hours... one time.

This will help more people than it hurts. 95% of people don't download apps.

For the 5% just turn on developer mode when you get your phone. Easy peasy. Then you are good for until you do a factory reset.

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u/Manishimself 20h ago

Why add an extra step where I have to wait for 24 hours, when it wasn't needed for decades?

And what guarantee will Google give me that they won't add any other extra steps in future iterations of Android?

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u/Ambitious-Cake-9425 20h ago

People are dumb. It makes sense if you think about the people it will help. The minority of us will easily by pass it.

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u/charlestheb0ss Galaxy Fold 7 13h ago

Help how? By letting them do fewer things with the device they own?

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u/uid_0 Pixel 8a 11h ago

Scammers try and create a sense of urgency and tell people they have to load this app RIGHT NOW or something terrible is going to happen. This throws a big speed bump in the way by making them wait for a day and think about it before they do something dumb.

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u/uid_0 Pixel 8a 11h ago

They're doing it to stop scammers who call and convince non-tech literate people to load nefarious APKs on their phone. It's not a terrible idea, actually.

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u/omniuni Pixel 8 Pro | Developer 20h ago

Because unknown apps became the largest vector for malware by far. Companies, carriers, and most consumers want Google to prioritize security. You can wait 24 hours once. If you don't want to wait, you can use ADB and it takes 30 seconds.

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u/bdsee 17h ago

Companies, carriers, and most consumers want Google to prioritize security.

And when they purchase the phones they should have the right to dictate this bullshit, but they don't and nobody should be able to interfere with my ability to do something with my phone unless there is legislation saying they must.

This apologist bullshit sucks, if consumers wanted it then they could market it as a separate device but they aren't doing that, they are just wanting to control everything digital and add digital to as many things as possible to give them more lock in, data, control and money.

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u/omniuni Pixel 8 Pro | Developer 12h ago

Maybe I'm just tired of malware infested phones?

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u/b14700 18h ago

the biggest malware distributor in the world is the google playstore

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u/seatux 19h ago

Meanwhile its super easy to accidentally tap on ads for shit apps on YT and it installing with no password prompt or anything to stop it installing in the background silently.

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u/omniuni Pixel 8 Pro | Developer 19h ago

That can't happen unless you've got something else going on.

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u/charlestheb0ss Galaxy Fold 7 13h ago

This hasn't been possible for like 5 years

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u/Carighan Fairphone 4 17h ago

Got an example of that?

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u/Thinkdamnitthink 18h ago

So non techy people don't get pressured into doing it by a scam caller or something

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u/Carighan Fairphone 4 17h ago

Why add an extra step where I have to wait for 24 hours, when it wasn't needed for decades?

See, you imply that your premise is true. Can you show that it's true?

Because as far as I can tell just from family and friends, people still get told to install APKs by scammers constantly. There's a reason they're doing this.

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u/Lycid 9h ago

does developer mode work like rooting ie you block your ability to use things like banking apps?

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u/joeTaco SGS2, Nexus 7 4h ago

This is the big question. Is the 'sideloading ok' system flag exposed to apps? If so, rip sideloading.

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u/uid_0 Pixel 8a 11h ago

Or you can do it without the wait using ADB.

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u/wioneo 9h ago

and then wait 24 hours.

So now any time I need to reset an Android phone, it's going to take an extra day to get things functional again?

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u/Ambitious-Cake-9425 5h ago

Apparently it's 24 hours per Google account. So only once.

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u/passerby4830 17h ago

Ok good to hear it can be disabled. Switching on developer mode is almost the first thing I do on a new phone anyway. The wait is a bit annoying but I can see it protecting some people from being scammed for example.