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Google Phone Starts Rolling Out 'Audio Emoji' (9to5google.com) 52

The Google Phone app is rolling out "Audio Emoji" to some users as part of an incoming update in the beta channel, version 128. As 9to5Google reports, they are "essentially stock sound effects attached to one of six different emoji." The list includes: clapping (applause), laughing, party, crying (trombone), poop, and sting (ba dum tss). From the report: When you, as the caller, select one of these "Audio Emoji," the Google Phone app will play a fun animation while a sound effect plays for a couple of seconds. The sound effect is heard on both ends of the phone call. There does seem to be a limit on how often you can use these sound effects, as there's a bit of a "cooldown" in between that prevents you from playing sounds back to back. That's probably for the best in the case of some of these.
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Google Phone Starts Rolling Out 'Audio Emoji'

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  • Just NO (Score:4, Insightful)

    by zenlessyank ( 748553 ) on Thursday May 02, 2024 @05:03AM (#64441450)

    Uninstall.

    I seem to be getting this nasty taste boiling up from my stomach as the thought of an Apple phone as an option.

    Is there a third party phone ecosystem I can try here in Amerikuntland?

    • Re:Just NO (Score:5, Funny)

      by Zocalo ( 252965 ) on Thursday May 02, 2024 @05:26AM (#64441478) Homepage
      Quite. This is *exactly* what the "retching & gagging" audio emoji is for!

      Oh, wait...
    • I don't need to uninstall this "feature", but I do need to mute it. Permanently.

      • by Moryath ( 553296 )
        This. I set my phone to silent mode 99.99% of the time. I don't WANT it making noises when a text comes in.
      • I don't want to hear this crap on a phone call...

        And the summary says something about an animation playing too...how the hell am I supposed to see animations on the screen when I'm talking on the phone with it up to my ear...?

        Seems stupid all the way around....

        • I don't want to hear this crap on a phone call...

          And the summary says something about an animation playing too...how the hell am I supposed to see animations on the screen when I'm talking on the phone with it up to my ear...?

          I don't know about where you live; but around here it's become annoyingly common to encounter people in public with their phones held in front of their face so they can look at them while shouting their side of the conversation.

          • I don't know about where you live; but around here it's become annoyingly common to encounter people in public with their phones held in front of their face so they can look at them while shouting their side of the conversation.

            Oh geez....

            While I've seen that on occasion, thankfully it isn't prevalent where I am/live/travel to date....

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Uninstalling just screws yourself, it does nothing to prevent other people sending you those sound effects. Other apps have been able to do it for a while anyway.

      Don't worry, nobody over the age of 14 uses it. Well, maybe you will, once you realize it can be used against telemarketers.

    • Re:Just NO (Score:4, Informative)

      by Big Hairy Gorilla ( 9839972 ) on Thursday May 02, 2024 @08:23AM (#64441916)
      I used to use LineageOS... it's pretty good regarding no google services. Also, look into Google Pixels, you could install GrapheneOS... it's pretty secure, probably the most secure system you can get... if you have the approved hardware, you can even do a web install... not sure I trust that, but it is convenient. If you can handle the ADB, what I do now is debloat samsung/android... the biggest problems usually revolve around the samsung button pushing sequences can be frustrating to get into the right mode.... and then you have to reinitialize and start again... some trial and error because sammy and google dont' like to be removed...for your own good, of course :-)
      I'm willing to share my simple uninstall scripts... also they are all over github and the rest of the net.. but in the end, it's all about running the ADB, and doing a series of uninstall sweeps in the right order to avoid triggering the defenses... you have to get Google Mobile Services out and then hardly any of the other crapware (mostly samsung) will work. You can verify what's coming and going via tcpdump and to be fair, you still leak some configuration info to google, but it's innocuous stuff... I approve this method.
      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        None of which helps because it won't stop the other person on the call sending the sound to you. You could be using a rotary landline phone and you'd still hear it.

        • question was "Is there a third party phone ecosystem I can try here in Amerikuntland?"
          this is meant as an alternative to Apple, not to stop whatever those things are.
    • 2 questions:

      #1 How do we disable it?

      #2 How do we enable it so that it goes off frequently & randomly on all Google shareholders' phones until they make Google stop?
    • Pretty sure this just SENDS the sounds through regular audio. So you don't have to send, but getting an iPhone won't stop you from receiving them.

      If there's a fart sound, I'm going to be hearing it a lot from my kids soon :-/

  • PRIORITIES (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cdmn1 ( 9615524 ) on Thursday May 02, 2024 @05:21AM (#64441468)
    its 2024 and the google phone app still can't manage multiple contacts lists or add a toggle to disable VoLTE calls but "Audio emojis" is the priority it seems
    • About that. So... Google phone ditches Visual Voicemail (something useful) and adds this (something dumb).

      • About that. So... Google phone ditches Visual Voicemail (something useful) and adds this (something dumb).

        When was substituting (something dumb) for (something useful) ever NOT a good business plan? Have a good look around, then tell me honestly that doing dumb, trivial shit isn't a major portion of what fuels our Ponzi scheme of an economy.

    • by _merlin ( 160982 )

      add a toggle to disable VoLTE calls

      With 3G being phased out, you'd be stuck on WiFi calling if you did that, effectively defeating the purpose of having a cellular phone.

      • Being able to disable VoLTE is currently critical and will be needed for at least a couple more years. The codecs used in VoLTE are still a mess with the only options being going back to the old system or abandoning cell calls(e.g. just use FaceTime). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
        • by _merlin ( 160982 )

          That's only a problem in places with incompetently bad infrastructure. I've been using VoLTE for over five years with no problems whatsoever. The most noticeable change over 3G is better talk time due to the more efficient modulation.

    • by antdude ( 79039 )

      Just like Apple that want new fun features and not fix old issues. :(

  • by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Thursday May 02, 2024 @05:23AM (#64441470)

    From TFA:

    9to5Google’s Take
    This seems dumb?

    • by Calydor ( 739835 )

      It doesn't just seem dumb; it seems like something a small child would find funny, not an adult.

      • To me, emojis seem dumb and something only a child would use. (Over)using them conveys writing laziness, but adults and corporations adopted them and keep using them in all forms of text messages and email.
        Nothing makes me want to ignore an email more than when the subject line is full of useless and annoying emojis.

        • by Calydor ( 739835 )

          I'm old enough to be from the time when we just used a quick smiley to indicate mood or tone; no need for firetrucks and eggplants and dog heads and some obscure scribble no one can agree on a meaning for.

        • Some of my employees communicate almost entirely by emoji text messages. They do their jobs well enough, and I get the gist of what they mean so it works -mostly. But when something important comes up, I do feel like I am teaching anger management to a child... "Use your words."

      • It doesn't just seem dumb; it seems like something a small child would find funny, not an adult.

        So... Elon's idea? :-)

  • by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Thursday May 02, 2024 @05:55AM (#64441516)

    Because what we need is more noise in our lives. It's bad enough people are on speaker when wandering through the grocery store, or any store, or have to honk their car horn two, three, or four times at midnight because they can't figure out whether they've locked or unlocked their car nor figured out how to turn it off, now we'll have people's phones make even more of a racket while they're texting.

    How lovely.

    • by hjf ( 703092 )

      the only "sound" i want on phones is the sound that someone will get when trying to send an audio note, some low note and phone buzzing and a message that says RECIPIENT DOES NOT ALLOW VOICE NOTES.

      i have a friend who i usually chat with. but he thinks we're being serious about politics, and he will send me three 1 minute audios of him ranting.

      people abuse those voice notes in two ways. they'll either send a stupid "yes yes, okay" audio, or a 3 minute audio that goes like
      "hey buddy how are you? how have you

  • Really?
  • I'm ambivalent about the poop sound's accompanying animation. While it's not as disgusting as I would like, the visual does incorporate a "cake cup" style ice cream cone, which I assume is an homage to "Two Girls, Once Cup."

  • by TheNameOfNick ( 7286618 ) on Thursday May 02, 2024 @06:16AM (#64441548)

    Who asked for that?

  • When adding a new feature, have to remember it will be (ab)used by idiots on the internet.

  • by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Thursday May 02, 2024 @06:20AM (#64441554) Journal
    ... it has a slide whistle, for my dad jokes!
  • by Dwedit ( 232252 ) on Thursday May 02, 2024 @07:44AM (#64441778) Homepage

    Trillian Instant Messager had this feature a long long time ago.

    Whenever someone typed in "LOL", it replaced that with a graphical emoticon with a WAV file playing. (This was many years before the word Emoji was used by English speakers)

  • If I didn't have a use for browsing the internet at times and checking train schedules, I'd use actually smart phones again.

    You know, the ones that did calls and texts for weeks on one charge and stayed away from doing dumb shit.

  • There is but one audio emoji and it is typed as Control G.

    Unless you're on a real VT100 (not an emulator) in which case there is also ESC [145q (which would turn on the 145th keyboard LED but instead does something else, as there are only two keyboard LEDs).

  • 'How do you disable google phone audio emojis'

  • Tell you why not:
    * Stupid
    * No one asked for it
    * Easily prone to abuse
    * Immensely distasteful
    ** i.e. sending someone in mourn a message with a "crying" emoji, and cue "sad trombone" sound? WTF?
    ** not to mention "poop"
    * Takes development time and effort that would be much better used
    And I bet it'll be impossible or hard to disable, as Google like to do most stuff.
    In short: Dear Google, for heaven's sake, just SHOVE IT.

    • Ah the crying emoji.

      I saw recently someone confuse the crying emoji with the tears of laughter emoji. The sent it on my road's Whatsapp group in response to a message that sometime died.

  • the Sad Trombone sound.

  • If I start hearing these in public I'm going to lose it. The number of people playing music, watching content, and talking to people using their speaker is already way too high. I'd really like to see phone makers implement a "veto" system that allows others near you to vote it disable your phone's speaker.

  • ...someone who calls me uses one of these, they get blocked.

    Problem solved.
  • Reminds me of ICQ. Remember when you could "shake" the window? I miss all those annoying, pointless features. Through enshittification we've lost a lot of the frivolous little things that made the Internet fun.

  • Why didn't they layoff the people who created this?

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