Google Geminiis making a beeline for the Google Assistant’s spot as Android’s default digital sidekick, and though the change isn’t mandatory yet (and maybenot even advisable in its current state), it’s already clear the chatbot has immense potential. Nova Launcher has earned its spot as one of the topthird-party home screen appsin large part by embracing new Android features and APIs, so it makes sense that Gemini support would already be in the works. Here we are less than a week from Google’s ChatGPT competitor making its rebranded debut, and Nova Launcher beta has already started to integrate Gemini.
Google Gemini is promising, but it can’t replace Assistant just yet
I tried the ‘experimental AI assistant,’ and my impressions are mixed
Released today, Nova Launcher 8.0.14 beta adds an option to change the Google Assistant icon in your home screen search bar to the Gemini logo. You can find this feature underNova Settings → Search → Desktop Search Bar(orDrawer Search Bar)→ Assistant. From there, tap the gear icon to choose the new Gemini logo.
As noted by Cliff Wade, Director of Customer Relations at Nova, on Discord, this change is largely cosmetic — all it does is change the icon, not the assistant itself. To do that, Wade says you still need to change the default assistant in Android’s system settings. However, in our initial testing, we noticed that this button still calls up Google Assistant even after opting in to the new Gemini assistant, and there doesn’t appear to be an option in Android’s settings to explicitly change the default digital assistant app to Gemini — instead, the Google app is set as the assistant and your account-level settings determine which assistant is shown.
We’re still looking for a solution to that problem, but in the meantime, the Nova Launcher team has been busy squashing other bugs in this release. In addition to adding support forAndroid 13’s per-app language settingsand the ability to search for IP addresses, Nova 8.0.14 beta fixes several issues with the UI and resolves some performance issues:
8.0.14 BETAFeb 13, 2024
Today’s update is the most significant Nova beta release in terms of user-facing changes since the launcheradded API integrationsfor apps like Slack, Discord, and OneDrive back in October. The same update also introduced widget-like cards for the app drawer, offering a new place to find glanceable information. It appears our initial concerns thatnew Nova owner Branchmight not give the app as much attention as Teslacoil were perhaps a bit overblown.
