Have you ever dreamed of having an electronic companion in your pocket with whom you can talk and get it to do things for you? If yes then you should feel fortunate knowing that this technology is just around the corner now, just last year Google announced its powerful android AI program called Google Assistant, a piece of software with which you can converse and control your device through.
You might be wondering that Samsung and Apple have already done this and the Google Assistant isn’t really anything that you need to be excited about, but the Google Assistant can do so much more than Siri and Samsung’s AI software, both of which are limited in functionality and can be frustrating to use at times.
Google Assistant is like the next version of Google Now which is a powerful and incredibly helpful part of any Android phone, Google Assistant takes its search features to the next level by making two-way communication possible. You can actually talk to the program, and it talks back, learning as you use it to provide you with a more wholesome experience.
Google Assistant is full of potential and is already out for use, the only problem with it is that the software is only available on a handful of Android devices in English speaking markets.
Its limited availability has left plenty of people disappointed, and it will take Google time before they can introduce their AI program on a larger scale, till then people with Android phones will either have to wait or find some other way of installing the software onto their smartphones.
Luckily there is a method that allows people to install Google Assistant onto their phones with a bit of tweaking, as long as your device meets all the prerequisites to run Google Assistant, you can start using the software pretty quickly.
How to Make Your Device Google Assistant Friendly
Right now Google has limited their software to their Pixel phones and to a handful of the other latest Android devices that are in the market, to run the software your phone should have android’s 7.1 Nougat update and it should preferably be a relatively new model so that it can run the software smoothly.
The process of installing Google Assistant on your phone is quite simple and requires only a basic amount of technical knowledge, the method that we’re going to talk about requires you to either have your phone rooted or have an unlocked bootloader. It’s a risk-free way that changes your device’s signature to that of a Google Pixel XL, so when you install Google Assistant, the software thinks that it has been installed on a compatible device.
Method 1
The first way of installing Google Assistant is incredibly simple, all you need is to have your phone rooted and have any root file explorer app that lets you edit system files installed. Once you’re ready, open the root explorer and go to the system folder, there you’ll find a file named “build.prop”, open the file to edit its text. The numerous lines of code can be confusing for someone who isn’t familiar with programming, but all you need to do is edit a single line that specifies your device’s name.
Scroll through the file till you find a line that reads “ro.product.model=*YOUR DEVICE*, once you’ve found the line, simply replace your device’s name with “Pixel XL”, the end result should be “ro.product.model=Pixel XL”. Once you’ve edited this line simply add a new line of code reading “ro.opa.eligible_device=true” anywhere in the file and save and exit. Now reboot your device, go to the Google app and clear its data and cache, once the app restarts you should now be able to use Google Assistant on your phone.
Method 2
This process is slightly more complicated and is meant for devices that aren’t rooted, what you’ll need are flashable .zip files that do all the code editing for you, you can find these files on the XDA forums. Once you’ve downloaded the files, copy them to your phone’s internal storage and completely uninstall the Google app from your phone before switching it off. Now reboot your phone into recovery mode, this process varies from phone to phone, it basically involves mashing either the power button or some other button on your phone till it goes into recovery mode.
Once you’re in recovery mode, navigate to the install option which is a large gray button in most recovery mode UIs. You should be able to see the two files “GoogleAssistantVelvet.zip“ and “GoogleAssistantBuildProp.zip“ in there, install both of them and reboot your phone normally. Now you’ll need to provide Google with all the permissions that it needs manually, once you’ve done that you should now have access to Google Assistant.
Both these methods are simple and take very little time to carry out, and the best part is that they don’t put your phone at any sort of risk, if your phone is already rooted then the first method is perfect for you as you don’t need to download anything for it at all.
However, if you don’t want to root your phone then the second method is suitable as well, it’s longer than the first one, but it doesn’t require you to interact with the system file yourself, making it preferable for people who aren’t familiar with fiddling around with their phone’s software.
This process is pretty reliable, but it will only work for as long as Google doesn’t patch it, the moment it gets patched you’ll lose access to Google Assistant. However, that’s pretty much the only problem with this method, so as long as Google doesn’t make any changes, you can enjoy using Google Assistant.
Article by Tom
Tom Carter is a passionate blogger, web developer, and a die-hard game lover. When he is neither writing his next blog post on his blog The Geekly News nor playing games, he often hangs out with his friends at the bowling alley.
