Get Google Now back instead of Google Assistant when you long-press the home button.

Android's Google search app was recently updated. When you long-press the home button, it used to show the Google Now screen (where you can see information such as weather before you search), but now it shows the conversational Google Assistant.

I personally did not like the Google Assistant, and wanted Google Now back. After searching the web, I found that it is not possible. There is a hack, though: changing your language to something weird such as "U.S. Virgin Islands". I tried it, and it did work. But that might affect other apps. So I kept look for a better solution.

I could not find a better solution. So, I came up with an idea. What if I create an app that poses as a search assistant and launches Google Now? So I made the app. The app is called Loader for Now, and it is available on Google Play Store. It is a paid app, though. I am sorry for that, but I need some money to live. I wanted to select a very low price like 0.1 GBP or USD, but unfortunately, the minimum allowed price was 0.5 GBP and 0.99 USD.

When you install Loader for Now, you need to set it as the default search assistant. The app itself provide an explanation and shortcut for that, so it is not difficult to use at all. Just do that, and long-pressing will launch the good old Google Now again. Very simple.

Behind stories

I submitted the app 3 times before it was accepted by Google. At first I named the app "Google Now Loader". It was rejected because the app's name started with "Google", which might make the app appear to be endorsed by Google (which is actually not very likely for my case).

So, I renamed the app to "Loader for Now", and put a bold disclaimer at the start of the app description, something like "This app is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google". I re-submitted the app, but it was rejected again. The reason was that it contained "Google Now" in the description. But how can I explain what my app does without the word "Google Now", when the only thing it does is launching Google Now?

Anyways, I had to remove "Google" or "Google Now" in descriptions, blurred the Google logo promotion image and re-submitted it. Finally it was accepted.

The problem is... searching the Play Store does not show my app. I mean, I searched the Store for "Loader for Now", and weird, unrelated apps showed in the result, not my app. Then I tried searching for "Google Now search Assistant". I understand that my app was not showing at the top of the search result, but there were very many unrelated apps like games, and I kept scrolling down but my app still did not show up. Why should completely unrelated games be listed before my app, when my app is actually related to the search words? I shall never know...

After some try, I concluded that it would probably be impossible for users to find my app by searching the Store for related keywords, so I created this post where I can freely use the word "Google Now", which would make it easy for potential users to discover my app.



Footer:  (They made me do it.)

Google Play and the Google Play logo are trademarks of Google Inc.