Google removes its Device Assist app from the Play Store

Google has removed its Device Assist application from the Google Play Store. The app provided tips and diagnosed issues for those who owned Nexus, Google Play edition, and Android One devices.

Google first released the app in 2014. The company confirms that it has been pulled on a support page. (Hat tip to Android Police for reporting the news.)

The app offered some easy ways to optimize the settings of certain Android devices — like turning off data roaming to cut costs and automatically lowering screen brightness to conserve battery — and also gave users a direct route to Google should they need technical support. For expert Android users, this sort of thing might not have been extremely useful.

But Nexus devices are also not a major business for Google, and the company has effectively stopped selling Google Play edition devices. Android devices from other manufacturers, like Huawei, Samsung, and Sony, tend to add user interfaces on top of stock Android. Such complexity might have only lessened the usefulness of Device Assist.