Android pushed through an update a week or so ago and it has really irritated me. I have a Samsung S7 (not rooted) and the upgrade now directs the home button to open Google Assistant rather than to go to my home screen.

I don’t use Google Assistant, I did use my home button though and I want it back!

I’ve spent ages looking at various forums where this issue is discussed and tried disabling the app, changing language, uninstalling updates and nothing works (or if it does it only works for a day or so).

I have installed a new touch home button which appears on the bottom of my screen and this is fine as a work around.

It bugs me that Google can just change the hardware functionality of my handset without giving me an option to revert back.

Has anyone successfully fixed this?

Long-press/short-press Shirley ?

Long = google
short = home

Yup.

Nope. Doesn’t work.

It does with 7.0, latest security fix 1st July.

should have bought an iphone

It bugs me that Google can just change the hardware functionality of my handset without giving me an option to revert back.

Google doesn’t, most UI decisions are upto the OEM, in this case Samsung!

I have an S7 and installed the latest security fix last week.

Home button still works as it did before the security fix, i.e.

Single-click = Go to home screen
Double-click = Load Camera
Long-click = Google Assistant/Now/Search (whatever they’re calling it this week)

Uninstall the update? (It’s the Google app).

From the Internet, I haven’t verified this:

1.Open up the Google App,
2.Touch the hamburger menu in the top left of the screen (looks like this: ?),
3.Select “Settings,”
4.Select “Your Feed” (which is toward the bottom of the options listed),
5.Touch the switch to the right of “Feed” and toggle it to off.

Uninstall the update? (It’s the Google app).

I don’t have the option to uninstall but I have disabled it. That just disables the button completely.

just download Nova Launcher, and you choose how things look

I’m more peeved at the more overt spying data gathering.

No Google, I do not want “Were you at Madame Whiplash’s S&M Emporium*, would you like to leave a review” plastered on my home screen.

Surprised there isn’t a 3rd option, something that runs Android, accesses the play store, but does so incognito and doesn’t require your entire life to be uploaded to Google or Apple.

*may actually be Pizza Express, or unpteen such messages throughout the day. But it’s the principle of it.

So how was “Madame Whiplash”

But you can turn off Google Now and save yourself the snooping and stalking.

As for Android without the snooping there is https://lineageos.org/ if you have the right device. (Its what Cynogenmod became after their collapse).

Surprised there isn’t a 3rd option, something that runs Android, accesses the play store, but does so incognito and doesn’t require your entire life to be uploaded to Google or Apple.

Think about how much you pay for Google services, and how much they cost to run…

tinas, you can turn that particular function off. long press on the notification….

Think about how much you pay for Google services, and how much they cost to run..

I see your point, but when Samsung, Sony, LG etc are selling you a phone for £600+, it’d be nice if it wasn’t downright creepy.

I’ve no objection to targeted advertising if done well, but it’s all gotten a bit ‘Big Brother’.

So Samsung should pay for two years’ of Google subscriptions for you?

Maybe it wouldn’t be so creepy if you read the T&Cs? 🙂

If you have a Samsung btw, you can turn of ‘Google Location’ in the Samsung ‘find my phone’ thing. That saved me tons of battery life, as find my phone was making constant location requests.

Weird.

I suspect all phones are a bit different, but on mine (not Samsung) the home button and fingerprint sensor are one & the same…..

Short press – home
Long Press – Google Services
Long touch – task manager/recent apps whatever it’s called.

So Samsung should pay for two years’ of Google subscriptions for you?

Pretty much, or just use some of the bazillion $ they make to create an operating system geared around the consumer not just as a means for gathering data.

I’m actually starting to want a blackberry (do they still exist?).

I’d actually be happier if they just asked “what’s your income, hobbies, etc” and then sent adverts related to those in whatever location I was in. Rather than snooping on absolutely everything, and then coming to the wrong conclusions.

My moto g5 is

Quick “press” (not a physical button) home screen

Long press assistant

Swipe left is back

Swiperight is all open apps

Flick the whole phone like a whip for torch

Shake it for camera.

Its also the finger scanner.

So unlocking my banking app with one hand can be a bitof a lottery.

Android Samsung pushed through an update a week or so ago and it has really irritated me

It bugs me that Google Samsung can just change the hardware functionality of my handset without giving me an option to revert back.

These changes are nowt to do with Google.

Well I never, I have a S7 and I never knew there was a short press and a long press option. Every day’s a school day.

Short press – home
Long Press – Google Services
Long touch – task manager/recent apps whatever it’s called.

Same here only the last one is double-tap.

Me too with the long press option I never knew about.
OP, I had the same thing on my Oneplus a few weeks ago. I Googled about for a couple of days, eventually found what I was after in Settings, then into Buttons… I think.

There are still phones with real, tactile buttons on the front? (apart from iPhone)

My last phone with a button was my HTC Desire, its home button had a nifty optical trackpad so you could scroll and click without getting greasy fingerprints from your crisps all over the screen :d

I see your point, but when Samsung, Sony, LG etc are selling you a phone for £600+, it’d be nice if it wasn’t downright creepy.

I’ve no objection to targeted advertising if done well, but it’s all gotten a bit ‘Big Brother’.
Ummm, you’re using a Google product, Google live and die through advertising, what, exactly, do you expect?
When you buy that £600 phone, using an OS developed by Google, it really ought to be obvious from the outset just what you’re going to get, and not be surprised by it.
How long has Google been pushing Android as an OS for smartphones? Ten years by my reckoning, so it really should be common knowledge what Google gets up to by now.

take a look at Nova launcher. It allows I to configure the look and feel of your phone much more than the standard os.

nova launcher

I’ve learnt two things from this thread.

1) my home button is more clever than I knew

2) tinas is going to be in trouble with Miss Whiplash for not leaving a suitable review.