- Google seems to be disabling the touch-and-hold trigger to read notifications.
- Users are instead being told to make a voice request to hear notifications.
- The timing of this move feels tied to the upcoming arrival of the Pixel Buds Pro 2.
Updated, September 17, 2024 (03:54 PM ET): It’s been a few days now since we checked in with Google about this disappearing feature, and we’ve got some bad news if you were holding out hope that this change might be a glitch (in spite of the evidence to the contrary). Google has now formally announced the end of tap-for-notifications functionality:
Based on your feedback, we are here to announce that we will be making the following changes to your Google Assistant notifications on Pixel Buds while we evaluate further changes to notifications. Assistant will no longer read unread notifications when using the press Assistant feature. Assistant will also no longer read unread notifications automatically and allow you to reply.In order to hear notifications, you can activate Google Assistant and say “Read my notifications.”
We’re still curious what that feedback might have looked like, as it’s not often that we hear about users requesting the removal of extant features.