The Gemini app is now on Mac

(blog.google)

65 points | by thm 7 hours ago ago

36 comments

  • hk1337 15 minutes ago ago

    Man, I’ve spent so many years now without google, I want to try it because I want to try different agents but I don’t really want to setup google on my MacBook.

    Does this have console like Claude and codex?

    • NeutralWanted 13 minutes ago ago

      The best by far IMO. gemini-cli

      • hk1337 12 minutes ago ago

        Damn you! Lol. Now I have to go install it.

  • originalvichy 3 hours ago ago

    I wonder if they will finally let you use past chats without having to turn on the data sharing, since it’s possible to store chat context on disk. (No chance).

    • anon373839 an hour ago ago

      It was always possible to store it in the browser’s localStorage, so…

      • tekacs 42 minutes ago ago

        It wasn't even the local-ness so much. Even if they stored at remotely it would be okay like ChatGPT or Claude but unlike the others for a long time the only way to let it store history on their servers was also allowing them to train on it. I haven't checked if it's changed.

  • shrx 3 hours ago ago

    Meanwhile, I still can't use Gemini as my Android Auto assistant.

    • phamilton 35 minutes ago ago

      I just got it last week. Still a few quirks, but positive so far.

    • BakeInBeens 35 minutes ago ago

      It is widely rolled out now and not just in the US.

    • VectorLock 41 minutes ago ago

      Can you use it as your CarPlay assistant?

    • fg137 2 hours ago ago

      This.

      Android feels like more of a liability than an asset to Google these days.

  • maz1b an hour ago ago

    Heard it's written in Swift for this native adaptation. That's a good sign.

  • syntaxing an hour ago ago

    Any way to run this on Gemma 4 only? If there was a “local” mode, I would seriously think about installing this.

  • xnx 3 hours ago ago

    The amount of products and updates shipping from the AI-invigorated Google is mind-boggling.

    They are leading or highly competitive in every AI segment: foundation model, open-weights model, video model, image model, world model, AI IDE, AI CLI, text-to-music, text-to-speech, etc. etc. etc.

    • comboy 2 hours ago ago

      Tried antigravity and cli a few times. I'm unable to handle that prodigious toddler. Are you guys able to make use of it?

      • NeutralWanted 10 minutes ago ago

        Been using it for work and personal daily since release. First few weeks were rough but it's probably the best AI code editor out right now. But that's largely due to the models just be superior

      • operatingthetan 2 hours ago ago

        CLI is great, probably 90% as good as CC.

        • girvo 2 hours ago ago

          Antigravity CLI or the Gemini one? When I tried the latter about 2 months ago it was shockingly bad, though I was a free user. I assume its better if you're a paying customer?

          • operatingthetan 2 hours ago ago

            It doesn't appear that there is an Antigravity CLI, so the ladder. I'm using a paid account though.

            For the last few months I was using paid versions of CC, Codex and Gemini CLI, and found them more or less equivalent for my uses. I'm just building web apps though.

    • straydusk 2 hours ago ago

      I'm about as AI-pilled as anyone. Stitch is the only Google powered AI product I use. How are they winning?

      • jsmo 2 hours ago ago

        Never heard of it, seems like a Wix / Canva knock-off?

    • verdverm 3 hours ago ago

      Their "ai-invigorated" GCP UI has been degrading substantially. It's becoming unusable and slower than Jira (which has actually vastly improved over the last several years). It currently has an expanding state problem (we suspect) because a change in one part of the UI is not reflected in the validation of other fields. Even clearing browser cache does not fix the issues. At least the CLI still works, but that is largely trad machine generated from schemas.

    • khuey 2 hours ago ago

      Really? Right now both Claude Code and Codex seem substantially more capable than Gemini CLI to me.

  • antipaul 3 hours ago ago

    Seems like the most basic thing ever.

    Can’t even use the new Gemma on device model… no model selection besides fast/normal/thinking.

    Also requires Google login

    • verdverm 3 hours ago ago

      Google models are good, their products are all subpar

      • magicalhippo 27 minutes ago ago

        I recently discovered you can lose chat history by switching between using Gemma web "app" and at least the Android version.

        Simply start chat on web, head to couch and continue on phone, later go back to web and, crucially, do not refresh your browser, but resume chatting.

        All that lovely stuff you chatted about on your phone will be gone from the chat...

        Android app also loses anything you've typed but not submitted if the app is closed while in background. I guess kinda expected but also annoying if you get interrupted.

        I also found Gemini oddly less accurate at web searches, and less willing to do them compared to ChatGPT. Working on an electronics project Gemini relied much more on innate, hence sometimes incorrect knowledge, while ChatGPT 4.5 went and verified datasheets and whatnot much more rigorously.

  • exabrial 3 hours ago ago

    > The Gemini app is now available as a native macOS experience

    Ok Google, this is well-earned. This is enough to make me try Gemini over Claude.

    I'm so fed up with _fucking_ self-updating Electron apps. One day it's working, next day its not. I'd rather just have releases once it's confirmed working, and something I can roll back if it breaks. I have work to get done, and it's like rolling the dice right now every day.

    • nozzlegear 2 hours ago ago

      I'm so fed up with _fucking_ self-updating Electron apps.

      Logging into Discord once a day and it opens and closes itself 3 times while that stupid logo spins and says it's fetching 1 out of 8 updates. What the hell. I actually hate Discord, I would migrate in a heartbeat if I didn't think it'd kill my WoW guild.

      • NeutralWanted 7 minutes ago ago

        I've mentioned to my guild using mumble and irc (via The lounge) jokingly but secretly hoping they are as fed up as I am with discord.. it'll never happen sadly.

  • 1Ecz3 2 hours ago ago

    still on the latest pixel phone - gemini can't read basic things.

  • Flux159 3 hours ago ago

    I'm going to be honest - this is over a year late. I still use ChatGPT on Mac because it actually had a Mac App from May of 2024, whereas I had to go to the Gemini website to use Gemini. It was even worse because of the fragmented experience - there's been an iOS Gemini app for a while now. Integrating Gemini into Chrome is not the same experience as having a standalone app.

    Now that it's at least here, hopefully Google can continue updating it instead of giving up on it if their metrics don't show as fast growth as iOS or Chrome usage.

  • Apreche 2 hours ago ago

    How about making something we actually want, like a GMail app for mac.

    • 46493168 2 hours ago ago

      What would that get you over just the chrome version?

  • egorfine 2 hours ago ago

    Excellent. Now the Project Manager of this app gets a promotion at Google, the team gets disbanded to other projects and this app gets abandoned. Congratulations!

  • qwertyuiop_ an hour ago ago

    Could we start the count down clock on when Google will deprecate this app ?