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Rumors about Google bringing Bard to the Pixel 8 line have been swirling for weeks now - and all the smoke has ended up looking like real fire by now. Deep dives into the beta code for the app by 9to5 Google and others have seen changes in the name as shown in the image above, leaked screenshots, and more.
Switching from the super goofy ‘Assistant with Bard’ to just Bard was already a big step in the right direction. Moving away from Bard and changing to Gemini (the same name as the large language model it’s driven by) is even better.
One of the most recent news items on this, on February 3 - from 9to5 Google - named the date for the app’s release - today - and more words on the rebranding from Google:
The changelog, currently with the date February 7 attached to it, directly says that “Bard is now Gemini,” and also offers some insight into Google’s reasoning … The rebranding is to better fit this, Google says.
We’re committed to giving everyone direct access to Google AI and, as of this week, every Gemini user across our supported countries and languages has access to Google’s best family of AI models. To better reflect this commitment, we’ve renamed Bard to Gemini.
Since seeing that, I’ve been planning to write something on my first impressions of Gemini on the Pixel 8 Pro. I’ve been eagerly awaiting more of the AI features Google promised at the launch event for the Pixel 8 line, and the Gemini app should be one of or the biggest showcase for that.
Alas, I have checked the Play Store on the Pixel 8 Pro many times today - a whole lot of times - and I don’t see Gemini, I don’t see Bard, and I don’t see any updates for Assistant. Maybe it will get released before midnight in my time zone, or more likely it’s a staged release and it may be few days before it hits my phone.
So stay tuned I guess. Now that I’ve used several excellent AI apps, my expectations for Gemini have gotten lower, which leaves room to be pleasantly surprised -or at least I can try to feel hopeful about that.
Playing around with Gemini Advanced today. Getting some strange responses. I asked it to summarize a text, and it responded, "I can't. I am a text-based AI." Lol!!!