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
If this is pushed through a silent update then I’ll use adb to remove it. I don’t need a useless ai assistant hogging precious memory.
I feel bad for for the folks who have their phone gimped overnight and they won’t have a clue why no clue why. So many people with older phones are going to need to upgrade their phone because of this forced update. Talk about e-waste.
It probably already is. AICore is a service thats been getting snuck on the andoids for a couple of months, ever since AndroidSystemSafety was push on silently, which is effectively like recall and scans all your photos and files in the background.
Thanks for letting know about system safety, I just removed it. Play store said my xperia isn’t compatible with AICore so I got lucky with that. Wish I could switch to lineage buty bootloader is locked.
Anything else I should remove?
not remove but there is an apk that acts as safety core so that it doesn’t “accidentally” pop back up on your phone after an update.
Is there a viable replacement to google assistant that’s self hosted or local?
Home assistant
Also except my Pixel running Graphene OS.
I got the change and immediately put it back to Google assistant. I don’t want AI. I want to tell my phone when to set my alarm clock.
How so I do this? Pixel 9
Settings> type “assistant settings” in search> digital assistants from google> click on Google assistant
Tysm
🤣 Gemini is the worst of all the ais. It can’t even do the most basic shit like set reminders.
Google has fallen so hard. They are just pure ad garbage now.
Timers are literally the only thing I use it for.
Just like Google Assistant
