For Android users, there’s a new digital assistant in town, and like most things introduced by Google in the last few months, it’s got theGeminibranding to let you know it runs on the powerful multimodal AI of the same name. The only problem is, when you change your default assistant to Gemini,you lose some key functionalityfrom the old Google Assistant, even though the former is still included as an extension. Now, at least one of these pain points is being resolved.
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Earlier today,a Reddit user noticedthat Gemini could finally set reminders for them, a feature that had been missing since the Android app’s launch (viaMishaal Rahman). We can now confirm that we’re seeing this same behavior on some accounts and phones, though not for others, so it appears to be in the early stages of a phased rollout.
Asking Gemini to set a reminder for something actually calls up the Google Assistant extension, which then adds the reminder via Google Tasks. After setting a reminder, you’ll see anOpen Tasksbutton on the Gemini overlay, which takes you to an activity in the Google app that lets you manage pending tasks. If you have the Google Tasks app installed, the notification for your reminder will come through that app — otherwise, it will be posted by the Google Calendar app when it comes due.
With support for reminders, Gemini has taken a big step towards becoming a viable Google Assistant replacement on Android, but there’s still plenty of work to be done. The ability to play podcasts, daily news briefings, and music from a streaming service is still absent, as is Google Assistant’s interpreter mode for on-the-fly translation. Perhaps the biggest omission currently is Gemini’s inability to handle Google Assistant Routines, breaking functionality like turning on your lights when your alarm is dismissed in the morning. But on the bright side, Gemini product lead, Jack Krawczyk, has said routine extensions for the chatbotare among the team’s top priorities.
