Pixel Owners Seem Mostly Unimpressed, Annoyed With Gemini

It’s about two months since Google renamed Bard as Gemini and launched it as an alternative to use on your smartphone versus Google Assistant. At launch, there was a healthy list of things Gemini couldn’t do that Assistant still can, and from what we can gather, things really haven’t improved much since launch.

Recently on reddit, a group of Pixel owners aired frustrations about the service. One user, einherjarOfNorth, put the situation quite well by saying, “Gemini no doubt excels at providing information however, some of the basic tasks like remembering something cannot be done with Gemini. It seems more like a half baked product which reduces the functionality of the existing product.”

User HostileRespite, who began the thread originally, started the Gemini complaint with, “I’m a huge Google fan.” Following that, they said, “If Gemini doesn’t do what Google Assistant already does, then it should at least work in partnership with Google Assistant. It not only doesn’t do either of those things, it completely overrides all functionality of Google Assistant and utterly renders it useless, and leaves me with little more than a mobile chatbot that is difficult to disable.”

Even Gemini’s reviews on Google Play can be a bit harsh, but I was able to find a couple that were at least constructive. For example, one user says, “It’s a downgrade to Google Assistant for what I need it for. Doesn’t integrate very well with Google Maps and YouTube Music yet.” And another person says, “It needs to be faster and it needs to do all the things that Assistant does already.”

There’s clearly a theme with Gemini — it doesn’t do everything Google Assistant can do. That is fair and does pose the question: Why did Google launch Gemini as an Assistant replacement if it can’t do what Assistant can do? What was the rush? We probably won’t ever know the answer to this, but one thing is certain, Google will continue to improve the service as time passes. It seems like a safe bet that one day, Gemini will do everything Assistant can do and then some. Until that day, I’ll stick to using Google Assistant.

What’s been your experience with Gemini? Positives? Negatives? Please feel free to share your experience with us so we can get a better idea of how people are vibing with the service.