The upcoming HTC Nexus Sailfish and Nexus Marlin smartphones launching this year could feature an animated home button. As per reports, this animation will precede the start of Google Assistant.
There’s been a steady stream of leaks around this year’s Google Nexus smartphones, which are being manufactured by HTC. The Nexus Sailfish is expected to be the cheaper model, while the Nexus Marlin is expected to be the premium variant with top-of-the-line specs and metal body. The latest leak however has to do with software and hints at an animated home button that could be used to fire up Google Assistant.
According to a GIF shared by Android Police, when you long press the home button there is a small animation involving four colored dots. This animation could be to show the start of the Google Assistant, which is the company’s new virtual assistant you can have a conversation with. The report adds that the animation won’t work if one has Google Now disabled on the smartphone.
Google Assistant was previewed at I/O 2016 earlier this year, which essentially takes Google Now to all-new level. Instead of having to ask from a predetermined list of questions, Google Assistant basically lets you have a conversation with your smartphone. The virtual assistant also leverages the contextual awareness that was introduced with Google Now on Tap. In essence, you can ask Google a question and then follow up with more questions. Google will automatically pick up the conversation and return the right answer.
The report says that the animated home button will be introduced on the upcoming Nexus smartphones out-of-the-box. There is however no word on whether this feature will also be a part of other smartphones that run on the latest Android Nougat 7.0.
The upcoming HTC Nexus smartphones have been spotted on benchmarking websites quite a few times recently. The Nexus Sailfish is expected to feature 5-inch 1080p display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 SoC, 4GB of RAM, and 32GB storage. It is also likely to feature a 12-megapixel rear camera, 8-megapixel selfie camera, 3,000mAh battery, a fingerprint scanner at the back, and a USB Type-C port.
The HTC Nexus Marlin, on the other hand, is expected to feature a 5.5-inch QHD AMOLED display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 SoC, 4GB of RAM, 32GB and 128GB storage options, 12-megapixel rear camera, an 8-megapixel selfie camera, a 3,450mAh battery, and USB Type-C port.
Source: bgr.in
Top Brands
