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beyond the alphabet
Beyond the Alphabet is a weekly column focused on the world of technology in and around Mountain View.
Now that the Galaxy S24 is out and Galaxy AI is taking the world by storm, my focus is back to what Google has planned with Bard. The company has just expanded Gemini Pro to more countries and languages and brought Imagen 2 image generation to Bard.
This is all great news, but it wasn’t the kind of news I was expecting. No, I’m not talking about the Gemini Ultra, which is expected to arrive later this year. Instead, I’m still wondering where the hell Bard’s assistant is. In recent weeks, we’ve seen more and more leaks about what the interface will look like, and there’s even a possibility that Google might simply rebrand the interface as “Gemini.”
In addition to one of the recent leaks; Mishal Rahman Bard’s assistant shared that it could land as early as March. But he went on to reveal what I feared the most: the new Assistant won’t be available on all devices. “The Pixel Tablet, Pixel Fold, and the rumored Pixel Fold 2 are on the reject list,” Rahman said in a tweet.
Assistant with Bard arrived a little early in the Pixel Tips app, giving us another look at how the upcoming feature will work. But it will also be revealed when it will arrive and on which devices it will be available. This is early information and could be wrong, but here’s what I found: 1)… https://t.co/qIgSJ60WMlJanuary 28, 2024
Basically, if you have a top-of-the-line Android smartphone other than a Pixel, you won’t be able to use it. To add insult to injury, if you’re like me and spent $1,800 on a Pixel Fold, you might be out of luck.
For a while now, I’ve felt like Google and other Android smartphone manufacturers are pushing toward an Apple-like walled garden experience. Instead of Android being an “open platform for everyone”; bad. Features such as ECG and blood pressure monitoring are locked to specific devices and do not work on Galaxy Watch on non-Samsung devices.
Samsung was the “first benefactor” with Wear OS, effectively leaving Fossil with no choice but to exit the smartwatch segment altogether. There are other examples, but the main one is how Samsung invests money in various companies to have “exclusive features”. Microsoft, we’re looking at you.
Well, Google seems to have learned the wrong thing after years of working with Samsung. What makes this whole situation even worse is that Google is fragmenting its devices. We’ve finally gotten to the point where fragmentation is no longer a dirty word in most cases, and Google has decided to ditch it all together.
It seems to make a little sense that the Pixel 8 Pro would have features that the Pixel 8 doesn’t, but it doesn’t make much sense. The differences between Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Ultra are similar and mainly come down to specs. This is to be expected, considering that cell phone manufacturers have been offering different phones in the same lineup for years.
However, the Pixel Fold costs $1,800; do not have While you can enjoy and take advantage of some of the new AI-powered features announced for the Pixel 8 series, you can’t even use the new version of Assistant. Frankly, just thinking about it makes my blood boil. I have high hopes for Samsung. I expect that from Apple (in a different way). please do not Please look forward to it from Google.
We also know that this is just speculation at this point and Google may change its mind. Especially considering the rumored Pixel Fold 2. should It should have at least a Tensor G3, if not a Tensor G4. So it literally makes no sense at all that Google Assistant, powered by Gemini Bard, won’t be available on the company’s next foldable device.
If anything, this is just another example of why Google doesn’t really care about its hardware or its users. Instead, people who buy Pixel smartphones just do that Please understand that you are a beta user and Google treats you as such.
Does Google even know what it’s doing with Gemini, Assistant, and Bird?
But if Google’s “grand plan” is to release an overhauled and rebranded version of the Assistant, what’s stopping it from coming to the Pixel Fold? If I’m right, the Tensor G1-powered Pixel 6 will come with Google Assistant Gemini with Bard, which you can still buy new from Amazon for under $350.
All of this just lends further credence to the idea that Google has no idea what it’s doing with Bard or Gemini. After it was announced, I wrote, “I’m on the Assistant and Bard hype train.” I’m really leaning toward leaving the station, considering the bard’s assistant hasn’t arrived at the station yet.
Bard is cool, but so are ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Hell. Even Microsoft Copilot shows a lot of possibilities. Google used to be in the lead, at least when it came to Assistant, but now it’s just wandering around aimlessly. I hope that maybe that will change and I’ll have to eat my words, but I don’t really think that will happen. At least not this time.
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