What you’ll want to know
- Google has introduced plans to take away a wide range of options from Android, and the newest one is Nearby Places.
- Nearby Places in the Phone by Google app permits customers to go looking the identify of a enterprise proper in the app, bypassing Google Search or Maps.
- Google says the characteristic wasn’t utilized by many and that going ahead, Google Search and Maps can be the technique to discover enterprise numbers.
Google is recognized for killing off merchandise, companies, and options usually, but current months have been notably powerful for Android customers. In January, the firm introduced that Google Assistant would lose 17 options. Now, the Phone by Google app is the newest casualty, with the Nearby Places characteristic set to be eliminated “in the coming months.”
The adjustments have been introduced by Google in the neighborhood boards for the Phone app, as noticed by 9to5Google. “We’ve discovered solely a really small variety of individuals use this characteristic, and the overwhelming majority of customers go to Google Search or Maps when in search of business-related telephone numbers,” the publish mentioned. “Those experiences additionally present richer outcomes and make contact with data for these companies.”
If you are not accustomed to Nearby Places, the characteristic primarily works like a digital phonebook. You can search the names of companies in the Phone app and uncover telephone numbers for these companies with out having them in your contacts. It’s partly location-based, pulling the numbers of native outlets and eating places routinely.
Using the Nearby Places characteristic as an alternative of utilizing Google Search and Maps can save customers a couple of seconds. However, as Google itself notes, the latter choices are usually extra correct. Furthermore, Google’s official steering for individuals who use Nearby Places is to change to Google Search and Maps as an alternative.
The characteristic is being eliminated in order that Google can add higher options to the Phone app, at the least in response to the firm. New options powered by synthetic intelligence might come to the Phone app this 12 months.
“We’re sunsetting this characteristic in order that our group can deal with constructing the highest high quality, most dependable, and most modern experiences in telephone calling,” Google mentioned in the publish.
Google highlighted a few of the AI-based options it has shipped for the Phone app, together with Call Screen, Hold For Me, and Direct My Call. Google says there’s “much more deliberate for 2024.”
We can solely assume that Google’s feedback allude to extra AI options coming to the Phone app sooner or later this 12 months.
The firm’s rationalization for eradicating Nearby Places is the identical one it used for eradicating 17 options from Google Assistant. In that occasion, it mentioned that the options have been “underutilized.” This time, it mentioned that solely a small variety of customers took benefit of Nearby Places.
The characteristic removals additionally come as Google continues company-wide layoffs.