When it comes to the voice your Google Assistant talks to you in, Google has offered a bunch of choices for quite some time now, including one which was recorded by John Legend. However, even though a lot of Google’s apps respect the voice you choose on your phone, some apps, like Google Maps don’t.
All that may be changing soon, as a report from 9to5Google is stating that Google Maps is testing using user-chosen Assistant voices while navigating. This comes in hot on the heels of the app adding a street view layer on Android a few days back, and biking and ridesharing information late last month.
Basically, if you choose a voice other than the default voice that Google Assistant comes with, you’ll hear your navigation instructions in that voice only. This will definitely come as a nice surprise to people who often use Google Maps in their cars or bikes to navigate around the city.
Personally, I don’t use navigation often enough to care about this change, but I can see this being very useful for those of you who do. What’s more, the change is reportedly happening in Android Auto as well, so if your car supports Android Auto and that’s what you use, you’ll now hear your chosen Assistant voice guiding you along your route.
It’s unclear if this feature has rolled out widely, but, according to 9to5Google, it hasn’t, and even if the change is live on your Google Maps, you may have to force stop the app and then launch it again in order to make it respect your settings. I tested this on my app and it didn’t work for me, so let us know if it’s working for you in the comments down below.
