Launch Google Assistant on Your IPhone As Fast As Siri
If you’re a Google supporter who happens to be an iPhone owner, you can now summon Google Assistant almost as easily as you can with Apple’s digital assistant. All it takes is a little creativity, a shortcut and a finger – and it’s almost as good as holding a physical button.
You ‘ll need iOS 14 to get started – not the biggest problem to install, as the developer beta seems to be going pretty well so far (at least on my device). Once launched, make sure you’ve downloaded the Google Assistant iOS app, then launch the Shortcuts app and create a new shortcut.
You will want to add one simple action: Apps> Assistant> Hey Google. (You might have to open the helper and say that it is your helper before it appears in Shortcuts.)
Disable “Show at startup” and save the shortcut under any name. (I named mine “Google Assistant” as it seems pretty obvious, but you’re not limited by my naming scheme.)
If you test this shortcut by clicking on it, you will notice that it automatically launches Google Assistant, ready for whatever commands you planned to tell it. We are halfway through our little experiment. (See? It doesn’t take long at all.)
Next, you’ll want to open the Back Tap feature in the iOS accessibility settings. ( Accessibility> touch , in particular.) Tap Double -tap or Triple -tap — your preference — and scroll to the bottom of the list of actions you can assign to the gesture. Click on the shortcut you just created and then go back off-screen by clicking on the “Back Tap” link in the upper left corner. You can then exit accessibility settings and return to normal iPhone use.
Now, when you touch the back of your iPhone twice or three times, you launch Google Assistant. It’s almost as good as being able to launch Google Assistant by pressing (or long-pressing) a physical button. But since Apple will never let you do this, this little trick is the best thing to do.