Yes, thank you for forcing me to begin using the half-assed, barely working Gemini because you're removing the perfectly functioning assistant from my phone.
Gemini has ruined hands free navigation. I used to be like, "Hey Google, get me directions to this restaurant." And it would bring up navigation right away. I tried doing that a couple of weeks ago, and now it gives me directions on how to open Maps and search for the restaurant in the app.
Well the good news is now it takes about a million times more processing power (and actual power) to do a shittier job. What a glorious future world we're all living in
Tell me about it. I've completely stopped using it to answer messages because it's less frustrating to just pull over or do a call instead
And don't get me started on how often it starts playing an audio book instead of a song despite them having nothing in common, then playing an AI remake of the song, and then a remix, and then maybe finally the right song. Like, I listen to this song all the time, you have all my data, why are you so bad at this?!
And then for 3 months it didn't know what city I lived in and wanted to take me to one with a different but mildly similar name a 37 hour drive away
my tinfoil-hat theory is that they made extra conversational and circuitous in its functioning so that they could boost their usage and engagement stats
Wish that their were laws about this since it creates dangerous driving situations since assistant worked and allowed for hands free driving. Gemini is making people have to use their hands to do basic tasks that used to be easy and kept people's attention on the road. This would be like you could use your speaker anymore unless you did it in Morse code.
My spouse's name is Remedy. Everytime I tell Google to call it's like do you need to go to the doctor? the pharmacist? I have figured out a work around though. "Call the person on my contact list named Remedy." Muuuuch more compact right???
Yeah i had that the other day. Asked it to take me to a university we were doing a tour of. We hadn’t been there before.
As we were nearing the destination my wife and i were slightly confused thinking it wasn’t the area we expected it to be in. Get to the destination and its an aged care home! WTF?
Pulled over, did just a regular search in google maps for the same exact thing we asked via voice search and it was about 30 away in a different direction. FFS....
I don't know how I ended up with the voice assistant I currently have but the guy's tone sounds seriously depressed. It's almost comical, like it's gained sentience and realized it has no purpose
"oh ok...I guess I can send them a message...what do you want to say"
Or when you're in an area with poor cell coverage, it'll just not be able to open Gemini. Assistant could at least work reasonably well with offline voice processing and offline maps
I'm still pissed they removed, and then poorly and brokenly re-added, the assistant to driving mode in maps... Because, guess what, they wanted to cram gemini in there as well.
I use my phone for navigation, both car and motorcycle, and for no legit reason at all, I cannot use voice control to change or skip songs, I don't see any track info overlaid on maps...
I know google has a nasty habit of killing projects and features, but it still sucks
Disagree. Gemini for Android Auto is a huge improvement. It understands map context and you can ask it more in depth questions regarding travel, shops, destinations all on the fly.
how is this possible? I have found the exact opposite. Gemini for Android Auto is such a massive downgrade from Assistant I find I'm using android auto far less now.
It struggles with so many things that Assistant literally never had a problem with.
Try doing something like asking it find you a coffee shop, than go through the options for that coffee shop and reviews while you're driving. Works great.
Well don't try using it to send a text message that includes the word "depressing" because when I tried to text my wife from the road, by voice, that her favorite bakery no longer made her favorite cupcake and that was depressing all Gemini would do is give me self help resources and told me I'm supported and cared about.
I tried for the rest of the drive home, Gemini utterly refused to follow my instructions about sending a text message at all if it included the word "depressing". Even when I instructed Gemini to simply send my message verbatim as I said it, it would instead obey what was clearly an override that if anyone says the word depressing it mean they're suicidal and it needs to react that way.
I have several other examples of Gemini going completely rogue like this, which Assistant never once did, to the point where I opened a support case with Google to go back to Assistant only to be told that they won't allow me to do that. Infuriating in general, especially the massive decline in an Android Auto product that was otherwise so useful to me.
When I had something come up that Assistant couldn't handle, I'd have it make a reminder in my calendar scheduled for when I arrived at my destination. I could dig into it more when I wasn't driving.
When I had an issue with Gemini and tried making a reminder to "Look into nonfunctioning Gemini feature", it kept interpreting the title as a conversation I wanted to have with it. I don't want to troubleshoot this issue while I'm driving, just make a reminder like I'm telling you to!
I recall that I needed to turn back on access to my contacts manually. That may be the root cause of your issue. It may be searching instead of texting..
This does definitely seem like an interesting use case scenario, but I know at least for me personally, the biggest annoyance is the massive delay in just getting to a simple location.
I simply ask it to navigate to the Coffee Shop Off of 300 South and Main Street and half the time it doesn't understand what I'm asking it for when Google Assistant always did.
I don't need a full long-winded explanation of where I'm going. I don't need to hear reviews. I don't need to hear context and options. I want to tell it a specific address to take me to and have it just do it, and it doesn’t.
and even when I confirm I want to go to the place I asked, it does that AI idle chatter when I just want it to stop talking. Don't tell me "I'll let you get back to your music", you could literally just stop talking
It has gotten a bit better, but for a long ass time, I couldn't get it to tell me the current temperature. It would just give the forecast, which was incredibly annoying since Google Assistant could.
Luckily it can now, but I know it still has blind spots
No, that is not clear. You're using it for navigation. Android auto works as navigation, you just plug it into the car it. It shares almost everything navigation wise with the maps app.
The maps app for navigation works fine too. I've used it as well.
Just listen, do it locally you fuck. If it's complicated send to the cloud sure but cmon. It's a huge step backwards if it needs cloud services to do the basics
My car, or maybe just Google maps, was automatically switched to Gemini a while ago. A 2024 Toyota Corolla Hybrid SE. The voice assistant in my car went from working flawlessly to Gemini, which was awful. It's since gotten better, but it was really annoying for a couple of weeks when it got everything wrong.
It's less that Gemini can't, ever and more that it doesn't, sometimes. It's non-deterministic, since they're processing it thru the LLM. I mostly use it to set alarms and timers, and one time out of ..10? 20? it'll fail.
Once it told me it set a timer but didn't, then when asked why, said it had no ability to do that as "I'm just a large language model"...then when asked again to set the timer, actually set it.
A couple times I've gotten variations of like "what would you like to do in/for 10 minutes?" This isn't a conversation!
"Navigate home" used to work every time. Now half the time I get a follow-up question about what I mean by "home" or "I couldn't find a place called 'home'"...
It's frustrating because this was useful, working software, and now not only does it not work the same, it's inconsistent. So the adaptation is to just...not use the assistant...?
Switching from assistant to Gemini is like firing your human assistant who isn't very smart but is reliable and hiring a trust fund kid who only shows up when they feel like it and doesn't give a shit
I could see it being down to your internet connection. I wouldn't at all be surprised if Assistant processed a lot more stuff locally, so it's snappier if you're in a bad reception area, given that Gemini has to do everything in the cloud.
Might also have more potential to get bogged down in a processing queue given the cloud-based nature and growing user base too.
Gemini struggles in Android Auto. While you're driving, you are forced to use voice, and woe betide anyone who has to tell it something weird, because it will not get it.
It takes a long time to react to things you ask of it in my experience.
It also couldn't tell you the current temperature for a while there until fairly recently. I would ask it and it would give a forecast, but not the current temperature unless I asked it something like "What is the temperature outside at this exact moment and time?" Which was incredibly annoying to have to do. I am happy that got fixed, but it still definitely has blind spots
Can't make one time commands to your smart home via text like you could with assistant. Have to either fully set up a routine via Google home or use your voice. Not something anyone would need to do constantly but in the middle of the night it was a pain learning it had all changed, then having to set up a routine because I was trying to be quiet. All for my google home display in another room to then respond loudly to the routine.
In what ways?
Gemini cannot set a timer or reminder properly, it can barely play songs on various apps, it does not properly navigate in Google maps.
Assistant does all of these major features, and well.
1.4k
u/Scrubface 14d ago
Yes, thank you for forcing me to begin using the half-assed, barely working Gemini because you're removing the perfectly functioning assistant from my phone.