[remoquete]

I was a loyal Claude user until I decided to try Gemini 2.5. "After all", I thought, "I already use a Pixel phone, so it's integrated with Android. And with Google Drive. And I can get it through my Google One subscription."

And now that I'm on it, I don't think I'm going back. Google did it again.

[firecall]

Just to add, I am mainly an iPhone user. But I have a Google Pixel 6a for dev and testing reasons.

And Google Gemini for the voice assistant is excellent fun!

Just being able to ask it weird and wonderful whilst on a road trip with the kids is worth the cost of a cheap Pixel phone alone!

[jofzar]

I have to seriously disagree on it for the "assistant" part. It is so terrible vs Google assistant.

There have been two really bad experiences that I had which boggled my mind.

These are transcribed because these were so bad I took a screenshot.

Example 1: "set an alarm for 15 minutes"

> Gemini sets the alarm for 1:15pm

"I want that to be 50 minutes"

> "you can change the duration of alarms in the clock app"

Example 2:

"what the temperature today"

> It is currently 5 degrees Celsius

- It was October in Sydney, the temperature was 22c with a low of 12c.....

[morsch]

Gemini never sets alarms for me and always points me to the app. Trying to call people is a crap shoot. Presumably there are settings for this somewhere, but there are like fifty sharing settings in four different places and it's impossible to know which apply to the old assistant or Gemini or both or just on the lock screen or to connected devices or... It's a mess.

It's even worse, when I tell it to set a timer now, it'll happily tell me it's been set -- but it hasn't (nothing in the app and I waited, to be sure). This is all reproducible and on a Pixel 8.

[jofzar]

Timer works for me, it uses the "utilities" connection to do it.

I wonder if your utilities is disconnected, because it's the same for the alarm

[morsch]

Thanks, apparently utilities is disabled because I disabled something called Apps Activity because the data sharing involved seemed both bonkers and vague.

Sharing chat transcripts I'd hate but deal with, but they're also getting files and images shared (ie possibly my screen whenever it thinks it heard hey Google or registers a double tap), related product usage which could mean anything, and seemingly unrestricted access to your location. https://support.google.com/gemini/answer/13594961?sjid=12105...

Not sure why I can use Gemini in general but can't have it set up an alarm without all that. Or why the AI thinks it can set up an alarm when it doesn't. I guess I'll opt in and try it out a bit.

[nicpottier]

It was really bad at first for this type of thing. I just tried a few of them because I too had given up on them and they seem to work perfectly now. It even cancelled the alarm I had previously set when I simply said "cancel the last alarm".

[arcanemachiner]

Try setting a "timer" for 15 minutes instead of an "alarm".

Not sure if this is a regional dialect thing, but in North America, a timer has a duration, but an alarm is set for a specific time, which would possibly explain the confusion.

[wccrawford]

While I agree it'd let the user use the system, the system should do the right thing for either situation, or at least abort and say it doesn't understand. That's the problem with LLMs so far. They can't admit they don't understand.

[gundmc]

> October in Sydney

These sound like fairly dated anecdotes. I don't doubt them at all - I had similar horror stories. I disabled Gemini on my phone in order to keep the old assistant for a long time, but it really has gotten a lot better in the last few months.

[jofzar]

March 11th was when the alarm one was From, these are just ones that I have screenshot because they were so bad I shared with a friend.

https://imgur.com/a/nj4newx

Edit: I just asked it for the weather this week and it only showed today. Like this is Amateur hour stuff, Siri 1.0 stuff.

https://imgur.com/a/81mz98Y

[gundmc]

I can replicate your weather one! I think it's taking "this week" extremely literally and the week ends on Saturday. Asking for "this weekend" gives Saturday and Sunday. Asking for the next few days gives 3 days out, etc .

Definitely not addressing the spirit of the request.

[AnonymousPlanet]

GP said they were in Sydney. As far as I know, the week officially starts on Monday in Australia. That's also the case for most of Europe, BTW. Maybe their locale wasn't set right or it's another case of American software assuming weird American standards for the rest of the world.

[jofzar]

> and the week ends on Saturday.

Except it doesn't, in literally every other country other then Japan, USA and Canada it ends on Sunday.

Edit: https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/days/first-day-of-the-w...

I'm wrong on the countries, it's more split then I thought. Regardless it's wrong for my geo which google knows I'm in.

[aprilthird2021]

Yeah I find myself actually talking to the Gemini assistant like I never have to any other

[acheron]

Is this an example of how to integrate ads into an AI response?

[remoquete]

Could be, if an AI actually wrote it.

[SkyMarshal]

Sounds like a generic AI response, though maybe I'm being too harsh, the AI response would probably be longer and more detailed. So, you want to tell us why it's so much better than Claude?

[remoquete]

AI-or-not silliness aside (gets boring real fast): I find Gemini to be faster (it matters), more reliable, with quality of responses being at the same level as Claude's. Better integration with Google apps and devices is a plus.

[singhrac]

Can you choose a model via the Gemini app? I can on the webapp (finally), but on the mobile app it won’t let me choose.

Using Gemini via Google Workspace.

[throwup238]

2.5 Pro Experimental and Deep Research showed up in the Gemini app for me today days after it was available on web so it seems to be different roll outs for different platforms.

[remoquete]

You can. Then again, I'm paying.

[ksec]

At this point something happened to Google, may be Open AI? And it seems everything is finally moving.

Unfortunately Pixel is still not available as widely as iPhone. They still need to work on its hardware as well as distribution.

The only thing I dislike is their AOM only or anti JPEG XL.

[weinzierl]

Out of interest: Using Gemini on your phone, integrated and all, obviously reduces friction, but would you say convenience is the only reason for you not going back or do you feel Gemini is a real improvement as well?

[remoquete]

The improvement in Gemini 2.5 is real, but I wouldn't say it's miles away from Claude 3.7. The fact that web browsing still isn't in Claude in Europe bothered me. It's many little things.

[akkad33]

> Google did it again.

This is quite vague. What did they do

[theletterf]

Ensure I only use them. It happened with search first, then mobile (Pixel), now it's LLMs.