If it wasn’t clear before that Google’s Gemini chatbot was rushed into deployment, it’s now.
Gemini’s now-removed image generator featured people of color in Nazi-era uniforms. The chatbot’s comments also proceed to trend towards the absurd, for instance by equating Hitler’s story with Elon Musk’s publication of memes.
On Android, Gemini also breaks Google Assistant song recognition. And to me, that is one of the crucial frustrating things about it, after the Gemini’s abhorrent cultural insensitivity.
Let me explain.
I primarily use Gemini on my aging Samsung Galaxy A53 5G, which is not precisely the fastest Android smartphone available on the market. To make it faster, I replaced the default home screen with a minimalist alternative, the Niagara Launcher, which is actually an alphabetical list of the apps installed on my phone.
Niagara is great. However, the choices are inherently limited, which is why I needed to depend on Google Assistant – now Gemini – for tasks like setting timers, launching apps, etc.
Song recognition, triggered with a command like “Ok Google, what song is that?”, was a feature provided by Google Assistant that I used often. It proved useful in nightclubs, restaurants and bars to discover clues I might have otherwise almost definitely forgotten. There’s no shortage of song recognition apps – Apple’s Shazam, for instance. But Google Assistant was certainly one of the higher ones available on the market when it got here to accuracy, a minimum of in my experience.
So imagine my frustration after I came upon that Gemini on Android cannot recognize songs – and even perform the essential task of forwarding song ID requests to Google Assistant.
When you ask Gemini, which replaces Google Assistant on Android, to discover a song, it suggests using apps like Shazam – or bringing up Google Assistant by returning to it. Random songs from YouTube are occasionally suggested for added variety.
Photo credit: Google
I’m very aware that this can be a first world problem. I could start song recognition from the Google search app on Android. Or if I were using a standard home screen, I could place the dedicated Song ID shortcut.
But the opposite aspect of Google Assistant’s song recognition that made it so attractive, a minimum of to this creator, was its low barrier to make use of. There was no must fiddle with an app or type anything to begin the feature. A voice command later and it was up and running, making it quick – useful should you’re attempting to quickly discover a song.
What makes the song recognition situation much more daunting is the proven fact that I’m paying for the Google One AI Premium plan, which costs $20 per thirty days and is imagined to give me access to a more sophisticated, powerful Gemini experience. Maybe it’s clever in some ways – possibilities that I truthfully have not discovered yet. But flawed song recognition, in addition to the dearth of basic features like the power to play songs, create lists, and more, currently make Gemini a really poor substitute for Google Assistant on Android.
Full transparency, I reached out to Google about song recognition via Gemini and can update this post if I hear back.
This article was originally published at techcrunch.com
