It is possible that Gemini will go faster on the Pixel 10, but it feels better to me on my older Pixel. The distinction isn’t the model’s intelligence or Google’s Tensor G5 horsepower. It’s a dead piece of hardware called Active Edge — a press-when-squeezed gesture that makes calling Gemini easy, reliable, and so satisfyingly natural.
A forgotten hardware shortcut that made Gemini instant
Active Edge made its debut on the Pixel 2 in 2017, and hung around through the Pixel 4, after being inherited from HTC’s pressure-sensitive frame trickery. Squeeze the sides and up pops the assistant with some haptic feedback and a subtle animation to boot. Then it vanished. Starting with the Pixel 5, Google rested on long-pressing the power button, hotwords, or software buttons to initiate the assistant — now known as Gemini.
On paper, that kind of reordering made sense. Voice activation is everywhere, and the latest microchips promise snappier answers. More practically, the squeeze had something those tools don’t: zero-friction access that is usable in any grip, and anywhere you are, without handling your phone differently or speaking aloud.
Why a squeeze beats buttons and voice to launch Gemini
Good AI is not just about how quickly one can infer; it’s also about how cheap it is to get going on a task. We’ve known from human–computer interaction research for some time that people will seek the path of least resistance — Nielsen Norman Group refers to this as satisficing. The shortest path is clearly a squeeze. There’s no target to search for, and less finger gymnastics to reach a side key (each brand has its own) or accidentally trip emergency shortcuts or camera launches.
Too strong a voice, unfortunately, is not always useful. Wake words can fire off speakers and smart displays across the room, and they’re awkward on a bus or in a quiet office. The squeeze is intimate and universal. It works while a phone is jostling around at the bottom of a pocket or half hanging out, or strewn willy-nilly with your crossed armfuls of groceries. It is that immediacy that turns Gemini from an app into a reflex.
There’s also ergonomics. Fitts’ Law says that the time to acquire a target increases with distance and size; a side button is something in motion relative to your grip, while a squeeze is the frame itself. With Active Edge, the “target” is wherever your hand already is: fewer fumbles and missed activations.
Real-world usability beats raw specs in daily assistant use
Yeah, the Pixel 10’s Tensor G5 does tout greater speediness for on-device tasks, tauter multimodal features, and more consistent context-keeping for Gemini. But day in and day out, the method of activation dominates what you feel is speed. On my retired Pixel 4, a soft squeeze instantly triggers Gemini — no repositioning needed, no long-press lagging around to start things up, and certainly nothing like the false wake when invoking the murky hotword version of Assistant. That first second of any interaction is when assistants win or lose, and the Pixel 4 wins that second every time.
Think of all your ordinary moments: translating a sign on the fly, starting a timer with wet hands, or requesting a location-based summary while in the backseat. The squeeze perseveres through movement, noise, and social barriers. And with all of the Pixel 10’s AI headroom, friction at the front door to the experience can drown out generational gains once the model is in the driver’s seat.
This isn’t just nostalgia. Industry surveys regularly find that even relatively small cuts in steps lead to big increases in use. Studies from usability leaders and HCI labs indicate minimizing mode switches — one-handed scroll to two-handed button reach, or silent to voice — keeps people in flow. Active Edge quietly gets that one right.
A Missed Opportunity, And Some Smart Workarounds
With the blinders off, chances are Google won’t bring back pressure-sensitive frames. They’re more expensive, tuning is more of a case-by-case and hand-size-specific affair with them, and they complicate water resistance. But the use case is stronger than ever in the era of Gemini. This specialized hardware pathway, which is a signal that AI isn’t ornamental but happens to be a core part of the system, is fast. Apple’s Action Button and the customizable keys on gaming phones suggest where all this could go on mainstream devices.
Lacking new hardware, Pixel owners can get a sense today.
- Make Gemini (Assistant) the default, then use Quick Tap (back double tap) to open Assistant.
- Power users can disable the Assistant on long press, so you don’t get into conflict with the power menu and can reclaim the side key for what it was good at.
It’s not as foolproof as a squeeze, but it rewinds to that nearly instantaneous, eyes-off takeoff.
There’s an accessibility angle, too:
- Unimodal, for one-handed use benefiting those with limited reach who can’t operate the tactile gesture.
- A voiceless mode for public places where speech is not desired or practical, or in noisy/multilingual environments.
Advocates of inclusive design have long promoted multiple input modalities; Active Edge was an elegant example, baked into the frame.
The bottom line: activation speed still matters most
Gemini’s best is when it’s easy to get started. And on older Pixel phones with Active Edge, squeezing to summon the assistant becomes a reflex, not a feature. The silicon of the Pixel 10 makes Gemini smarter and faster once you’re inside — but that first touch still matters more than marketers tell us. If Google wants Gemini to feel indispensable, it needs a hardware-grade shortcut once again — whether it’s a modern squeeze input method, a programmable key, or a systemwide gesture as intuitive as grabbing the phone and making magic happen.