Google Gemini on Android: Full Review & Features

Google's new Gemini mobile app has been out for a few days now and during this time I've replaced Google Assistant tested it on multiple devices and have honed in on some issues that Google should be working on at this point I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of the app and its capabilities so in this video we're going to cover what the mobile experience is like and more importantly go over some crucial aspects you need to know as a Gemini user there are two very important things I should preface about Gemini before we get started while safe to assume Gemini is no longer in beta lots of changes are happening behind the scenes so my advice is to check the Play Store for updates on a daily basis for both the Gemini app and the Google Search app I say that because at launch there were some crucial features missing that prevent it from replacing Google Assistant as a whole but in the past few days Google has already addressed some of them one of the most frustrating issues was needing to manually submit voice commands as opposed to having them automatically sent out like we see with Google assist but thankfully that was updated a few days after launch so voice inquiries will now Auto submit once voice detection is recognized the prompt is completed on top of that we did get confirmation from a googler on the AI team stating they'd be working on prompt refusals preachy guard rails and implementing more Google Assistant tasks like calendar submissions reminders and routine extensions two I got a lot of comments asking about availability on my previous video at the time that information was not available and still technically isn't but again based on the Tweet we referenced earlier it seems like the app will be getting released in Latin America Africa asia-pacific and Canada effective Monday February 12th with European availability pending at the moment with that said let's get into some of the aspects that make the Gemini mobile experience worth it at least to me before the app went live my biggest concern was if it was going to be a simple shortcut to the web experience or a fully fledged mobile application and I am more than happy to report that there are some thoughtful nuances that we can take advantage of as mobile users if you install the Gemini app you'll be able to access it from anywhere by holding down the power button swiping up from the bottom corners or using the hey you know who hotw command and it's important to know it will straight up replace Google assistant at least for now which we will get into a bit later in terms of supported features I've tested almost everything from the web experience and it seems pretty powerful for the most part the mobile app can take action on prompts like image generation that work pretty well might I add help with creative writing summarize information from Gmail or Google Drive make travel plans with Google Maps and a big question I've seen asked is if Gemini can read PDFs which is a two-part answer at this time you currently cannot upload a PDF directly to the text box prompt but what you can do is upload a PDF to Google Drive and then ask Gemini to summarize via the workspace extension in my case I uploaded a 10 page sample PDF and asked it to summarize with success you can also ask questions about it have it translated into different languages or generate creative text from the contents of that PDF keep in mind it isn't perfect though over the past few days I've had multiple refusals for seemingly no reason so just keep that in mind moving forward there are a few more features that should be on your radar especially if you're trying Gemini for the first time like the option to double check responses by showing you the source of the information and giving a direct link to the article being referenced facts that can be verified sh in green and if the information is different from the source it'll show in yellow where you can continue digging for more context you also get the option to export your findings into Google Docs change the nature of the responses by making them either longer shorter more casual or professional and my personal favorite is the ability to create a public link to share with colleagues or anyone interested in the prompts you're submitting this is good mainly for trouble shooting let's say you're experiencing issues with a prompt and want to have fellow AI enthusiasts take a look they can see exactly what prompt you typed in and that level of transparency makes it so much easier to collaborate on while Gemini is really great for those that want an indepth AI experience a big issue on mobile is that it will outright replace Google Assistant for most areas of the OS and at this time you can't have Gemini active without it taking over as the virtual assistant on one hand I'm glad the function is there so that we can experiment with it but on the other hand Gemini is clearly not ready to replace Google Assistant yet Google says so far Gemini can create alarms and timers make phone calls send text messages and read incoming messages access device controls like turning on the flashlight Bluetooth or opening an app control Smart Home devices like lights or home security systems broadcast messages on connected devices in your home read web pages out loud on the pixel 8 series or ask for help with your pixel that'll pull up a mini support page from my testing all of these work well except for the read out loud prompt where I get an error message stating they can't assist but I expect that to be fixed sometime in the near future if you're planning on using Gemini as your assistant it's important to know it currently cannot make a Google calendar appointments control media like podcasts or YouTube music set routines on home devices set reminders or use The Interpreter mode so if those are important to you stick with Google Assistant for now with that in mind if you do choose to switch over to Gemini completely expect to see Google Assistant active with add a glance voice typing for gboard and Android auto interactions moving forward it appears Google Assistant will start to fill a more specialized role in Google products like smart displays smart speakers TVs cars SmartWatches headphones earbuds with Google Assistant built-in and the pixel tablet finally I wanted to conclude this video going over some common issues or more so interesting pieces of feedback we've seen show up since launch I know Google is constantly working on the application itself so these things might be fixed down the road but it's still important to point them out anyways first and a common issue that I see often is users finding themselves repeating or requesting prompts quite often at times I've experienced this as well with prompts that I know for a fact should work without a problem and all too frequently I get the I'm just a language model error because it either misinterprets or flat out does not understand the question to get around this I find myself having to start a brand new chat or re-enter the prompt multiple times slightly differently so it still has a long way to go in that regard doing a quick comparison to the Bas level consumer version of chat GPT there are a few elements that I think should be improved specifically I find chat GPT is much faster at delivering information whether it's creative writing asking factual questions or those trick questions to test intelligence of course Gemini is connected to Google search and can provide real time information so maybe we should give it some Grace there nonetheless I did want to touch on it also since we're comparing chat GPT to Gemini real quick I really like the vibration feedback you get when chat GPT is delivering answers on a prompt it just feels more engaging and fun to use so maybe Google should consider stealing that feature these next two are critical problems I've had with the idea of replacing Google Assistant with Gemini one there is no offline support of any kind if you disconnect from the internet it won't recognize voice input it won't attempt to run any prompts and you can't even see your most recent chats the reason this becomes an issue is because Google Assistant can at least do some basic commands while offline and use voice input like setting alarms turning on system functions like flashligh or do not disturb and Google Assistant can open applications all on your behalf while offline the second issue I have is Gemini is much slower than Google Assistant when it comes to those daily tasks like getting directions or gathering we information for example I'm sure this will improve greatly over time but something to keep in mind for now and finally the most common piece of feedback I see Gemini seems to have a lot of filters in place that will prevent some prompts from being initiated and while frustrating I encourage you to check out their AI ethics guidelines posted in the description if you want more context Google does explicitly State their limitations around certain prompts and why so it's worth looking at so you know ahead of time what prompts are most likely to trigger the filter overall I truly do think Gemini has a promising future within the Android ecosystem but without a doubt has a long way to go for now I'm going to keep using it as my Google Assistant replacement to keep track of how the model changes but let me know what you guys think does Gemini have the potential to be a full replacement and if so what features would you like to see in the future that are currently not available leave a comment below I'm sure myself and other AI enthusiasts would like to know what the community is thinking in the meantime guys I'm getting out of here this has been Jordan Floyd with 95 Google thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next [Music] [Music] one

Channel: 9to5Google

Views: 136,116

Keywords: 9to5Google, Jordan Floyd, Android 14, Google, Google Gemini, Bard AI, pixel 8, Pixel 8 pro review

Id: 3I7hA6ein0U

Length: 9min 26sec (566 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 13 2024