We’re upgrading Google Assistant users on mobile to Gemini, offering a new kind of help only possible with the power of AI.
I miss now on tap
When your hands are wet or you can’t grab your phone…the one thing I used Google assistant for, Gemini can’t do.
If you still have Google Assistant, it will tell you it can’t set an alarm, and then tell you to try setting an alarm using Google Assistant
Gemini works as a general search engine, but it’s trash at everything else.
I don’t want that at all. Well I guess I can’t use hands free anymore. Thanks google.
Translation: your phone runs fine right now… Well not anymore! Introducing more Bloatware! Your phone has never crawled like this before.
Terrible idea. Every time I look at toggling it on just to test, it explicitly lists features that I use as ones which will be disabled by the switch.
I have no idea of the difference other than I feel slightly like a downgrade when I cant do simple things that Inused to be able to. The biggest difference isnlikely to be my privacy and data.
Google on tap was all I needed and they have removed and it readded it multiple times…it is currently the only gemini feature I use. And its not a gemini feature.
Gemini is hardly an uprade to Assistant, though. Gemini can’t do any task automation (aka the one thing Google Assistant could do) because it’s a LLM that most likely doesn’t even ‘know’ that it’s being run on a phone…
I am sure they are working on automation with Gemini when they replace assistant
I don’t know if they can really do that since Gemini is just an LLM at its core. Maybe they could integrate Assistant functionality into Gemini on Android that’s then triggered by certain keywords, but at that point why not just keep both Assistant and Gemini?
They already fucked up assistant so bad that it can’t even set timers anymore… )):
Yes. This is why I’ve disabled it repeatedly when it supplants my assistant.
If they remove automation, well, that was the one thing standing between me and de-googling.
Well, too bad, i have replaced Google on my phone.
What setup you currently running?
GrapheneOS is the only one that can really sever the Google connection. LineageOS is kind of a halfway point but still relies on an amount of Google to function.
I find Gemini has better communication and comprehension ability compared with assistant, but can do even less when it comes to controlling the phone. No reminders, no calendar events, no messages, no integration with anything. Just talking.
I would have preferred assistant talk and understand better, instead of a completly gimped alternative that does that and nothing more.
Exactly, and maybe I’m a outlier, but I have no intention of speaking to my device like it’s a human. Ever.
Mine does reminders and events now. It can also do Google home stuff.
Integrations with the phone’s functionality is key. I don’t care how clever the brain is, it needs to talk to the rest of the body.
I’m somewhat of a boomer, what sort of things can you do through assistant?
I use it to set reminders and alarms. I don’t keep the “OK google” stuff on, I just hold the power button for a second or two until the assistant pops up (or at least used to, I haven’t done it in a while so I’m not sure if it’s stupid gemini now instead), then just say like, “remind me friday at 3pm to call the doctor” and it does it.
Set or change alarms, add reminders to your calendar, ask about those things, send text messages, start phone calls, have it read out last text messages received.
When I was a truck driver, my wife could test me, and I could just listen to a transcript of what she sent instead of calling her and asking what she typed.
“Hey Google, read my last text”
“Hey Google, send a text to <wife>, 'Quit texting me while I’m driving, woman!” Stuff like that. 🤣
Usually quick things in the car when I don’t have hands.
- Ask about weather
- Set a reminder
- Reply to a text
Once again, thank goodness for GrapheneOS.
Seriously considering this for my next phone. I currently have a Pixel, so I’m thinking I’ll get another Pixel, try grapheneOS on the one I have to get comfortable with it, before doing it to the new phone.
Never have I appreciated not having features so much.
Gemini eats glue. We need a much more reliable model to replace Assistant.
Google Assistant: Let’s build a product around functionality.
Gemini: Let’s build functionality around a product.
Any guess which method works better?
Works better to satisfy shareholders?
Good thing I never used Google Assistant then.
Same here. Really looking forward to not using their new product. How exciting.
I feel bad for visually impaired.
Or people who don’t have, or have lost, motor function in their hands.
I feel jealous for the hearing impaired. Just think of everyone and they’re dog showing off how dumb it is all the time.
Astute point, they’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater here and hurting the disabled community to push their inferior product that nobody really asked for.
Just because I don’t use it doesn’t mean others who need it also don’t.
It happens, we forget the sheet diversity of experiences because we’re human. I try to have multiperspectivity, but even that is limited to one’s own experiences and imaginative abilities, on the best days.
I actually use it a bunch for setting reminders and it does pretty good at that.
For sure, but I am also capable of doing that with my thumbs… which is what I do.
Gemini might be good at something, but I’ll never know because it is bad at all the things I have ever used the assistant for. If it’s good at anything at all, it’s something I don’t need or want.
Looking forward to 2027 when Google Gemini is replaced by Google Assistant (not to be confused with today’s Google Assistant, totally different product).
Seriously, I tried Gemini for a while but it is mostly useless. It can it open my apps, cannot control Home Assistant, cannot send a message to someone.
Yeah, it has a total lack of any of the integrations that made Assistant actually useful.
Even if an LLM offers meaningful improvements on the core conversational elements of Assistant, launching it without all the needed integrations is idiotic and completely hamstrings the functionality.
I swapped to Gemini for a month or two. Kept thinking to myself “maybe I’m not speaking clearly,” and other justifications. Turns out it just sucks. Now I just do everything manually. Fuck em.
