I just spent about 2 hours trying to figure out how to turn off google assistant always listening and turning off the driving mode for maps. Still can't solve the maps thing. Looking for an alternative, this is getting so shitty.
I bought a pixel because I couldn't stand the bloatware that came from Samsung devices, now I can't uninstall chrome or any google apps, fuck this.
In exchange for no bloatware, a Pixel offers you an all-in-one spyware device.
Actually I just used GMaps yesterday and noticed it no longer suggests locations (recent or otherwise) when starting a map search because I have "web and app activity" turned off in privacy settings too. It is just a blank screen with a search bar. That one just seems spiteful, but also why the fuck would "app activity" be relevant to locations of interest around me?
All these changes put together tells me Google is desperate to squeeze out as much ad placement value from their services as possible and are willing to nuke their app experiences to do it.