I have found the translation from camera source feature useful in Google Translate and I use it from time to time. Last night was one such occasion, yet when I attempted to enable camera mode, I received the message shown in the screenshot, “Please install the latest Google app in order to use camera translation”. I currently have a Pixel phone and I have had the Google app disabled since shortly after I got it.
I left negative feedback on the Play Store after I discovered this new wrinkle as I feel Google thinks they have struck upon a way to prevent users from disabling or uninstalling the Google app. The developer responded that Translate camera is “now powered by Google Lens which is part of the Google app”.
I have been struggling to remember another occasion where an app has been dependent on the presence of another app to function in either Android or iOS. Besides the obvious Google shittiness, I feel like introducing these sorts of application interdependencies opens the door to… idk, something bad.
Thoughts?
Edit: As I have noted in the comments, this is not a problem unique to the Google Pixel phone. If the Google app is disabled on the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip4, the same behavior occurs.
It’s part of the never ending death march of every decent Google product.
First it’s a name change, then they’ll tweak a core functionality so it’s really really helpful, then they’ll either kill it immediately or move it into another package (thus fracturing older apps and devices from the functionality completely), then they pay wall it or kill it abruptly.