We’re upgrading Google Assistant users on mobile to Gemini, offering a new kind of help only possible with the power of AI.
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 miss now on tap
I don’t want that at all. Well I guess I can’t use hands free anymore. Thanks google.
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?
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.
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.
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 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.
🤣 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.
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.
Meh, the GPS SUPL thing might be the only one for me, but i prefer good location. I use Cromite and never used Captive Portals.
https://old.reddit.com/r/degoogle/comments/cldohl/how_to_degoogle_lineageos_in_2019/
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.
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.
Once again, thank goodness for GrapheneOS.
Seriously considering this for my next phone. I currently have a Pixel, so I’m thinking I’ll get another Pixel, try grapheneOS on the one I have to get comfortable with it, before doing it to the new phone.
The switch was much easier than expected.
Never have I appreciated not having features so much.
