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When your hands are wet or you can't grab your phone....the one thing I used Google assistant for, Gemini can't do.
I also use Gemini Assistant to set my timers and have never had an issue.
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
Oh I still have Google assistant as my main assistant. I just switched it to Gemini for the screenshot
Translation: your phone runs fine right now.... Well not anymore! Introducing more Bloatware! Your phone has never crawled like this before.
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.
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.
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....
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.
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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.
I miss now on tap
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.
Same. I’d say the enshittification of devices has gone far enough.
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.
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Google assistant was already a good listener, it seems to have gotten worse, but compared to anything else I've tried to do with voice it was & is still the best at understanding, and can be set to be bilingual.
I honestly don't understand this but it's very Google to push the change before the replacement is fully baked. They did that with YouTube Music too.
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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 no clue why. So many people with older phones are going to need to upgrade 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.
Can we delete it?
App Manager doesn't seem able to remove all the google bloatware from my Flip6.
Also, using Aurora and F-droid and still getting 'download from Google play' error message when trying to run certain apps. Any work around?
No fucking thanks! Gemini is garbage.
But Google likes garbage...
Y'all I'm still loving my Pixel 3A, but I factory reset it years ago and refuse all security updates (because most things work better as is). I know this is a little scary on the security front, but "hell no" to all their shitty updates, Gemini included.
Any idea what I can root to? I'd love to have a secure OS but I have no idea where to start.
I use Google Assistant a lot. I tried the Gemini Assistant on my phone and it was an exercise in frustration.
Me: (after pausing the tv) "Resume TV"
Google: (resumes playback on TV)
Gemini: "TV not recognised. Please say the device name" or even worse... "A resume is essential when you're looking for a job in television. Your resume should blah blah..."
Me: (with phone locked) "set a timer for xxx"
Google: "setting a timer for xxx, starting now"
Gemini: "I'm unable to set timers, please unlock your phone, open xxx and (lengthy step by step instructions)", or "setting a timer for yyy" (completely wrong time).
They activated Gemini at work to auto-complete stuff in emails. I work in IT, and I was not aware of that. I was typing the sentence "we will need some help" and was about to add "in the project blah blah" but Gemini came with its amazing auto-completion and added something like "in the street where they sell sausages".
AI was a mistake, and I didn't use it since that day. Waste of time, waste of everything.
Granted I've a N Irish Belfast accent but Assistant pretty much always got exactly what I said. They've definetly gimped the speech recognition in Gemini I tried show me a picture of a jet and it responded with here's a picture of a unique job title.
There's wrong and there's how the hell.
Once again, thank goodness for GrapheneOS.
Never have I appreciated not having features so much.
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Good thing I never used Google Assistant then.
I feel bad for visually impaired.
Or people who don't have, or have lost, motor function in their hands.
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Is there a viable replacement to google assistant that's self hosted or local?
Home assistant
Also except my Pixel running Graphene OS.
Gemini eats glue. We need a much more reliable model to replace Assistant.
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this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2025
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