Android Oreo makes it easy to access Google Assistant via third party apps

k8 note Android Oreo release

Android Oreo is fresh out of the oven. While it brings many obvious features for users, some are buried under the code, only to be discovered by developers.

Thanks to the fellows at XDADevelopers.com who did some digging into Oreo code and found that there is a new command (startVoiceActivity) in Oreo code. The command primarily allows apps to create a new task within Android’s activity manager.

Also read: Google Assistant Tips and Tricks.

In simple words, apps that support Android 8.0 can run Google Assistant from within them. Of course, the usual holding the home button to launch Google Assistant would remain intact, but now you could run Google Assistant from within the apps, something similar to Google Allo but for all apps. It depends on the third party developers how they utilize this functionality.

And what’s great is since Android allows you to set any Assistant as the default one, the functionality is not limited to Google Assistant. In future, apps can invoke Assistants like Cortana, Alexa, and others.

Android Oreo was launched on August 21 and comes with new features such as Picture in Picture mode, Notification snooze, new accessibility features, better battery optimization and other great things.

Source: 9to5Google