Meanwhile, Google's like, "We're removing the ability to silently check your notifications using your Pixel Buds. You have to use the voice command now. No, we don't care that you primarily use them in public spaces. And we really don't care that our voice recognition has a 15% success rate."
Someone raised the question of whether Google might have had a security concern. Since you can pick up unpaired headphones and listen to notifications from a locked phone. Though Apple does have a similar feature with AirPods: Announce Notifications.
That's shitty but I fail to see how the course of action there would be to start using the voice commands instead of just, you know, silently pulling out the phone and checking the notifications with your eyes.
I dunno, I didn't have much of a problem with them unless my hands were wet. Occasionally couldn't make the triple-tap work, and maybe some issues with accidentally adjusting the volume. I found the "push and hold to play notifications" function to be super reliable, though.
90% of the time it triggers some random function for me when I am just trying to push it back into my ear (pause, skip forward, some sort of tutorial crap, notifications,...)