Google Launches Native Gemini AI App for Mac

[Chazak]

Is the web app version (which could be used as a PWA) giving the same results as the Mac app?

Same results for me.

 

[hagar]

“Gemini is the last of the three major AI services to have a dedicated Mac app, because OpenAI and Anthropic have had Mac apps for quite some time.”

I love the jab at Grok.

 

[sich]

And this one is not from the app store (that is, non-sandboxed) as well. Thanks, but no.

 

[edubfromktown]

Nah.

I use the free web-based claude.ai and duck.ai plus, MacGPT app offerings quite effectively for personal and work purposes.

 

[uczcret]

I hate apps that automatically add themselves to startup login items without asking permission to the user and without a proper opt-out in app's settings.
This app add two items: one under "Open at login" (the main app) and another under "background" (the auto-updater).
Manually removed both.

Removing the login item in system settings doesn't really solve the problem. The next time you launch the app, the login item comes back as well. So annoying.

 

[O.N.Y.X]

Nope, I stick with Duck.ia since I barely use AI.

I 2nd that. It does everything I need it to do. And: I’d never pay a subscription fee for a chatbot, period.

 

[dg1974]

Removing the login item in system settings doesn't really sokce the problem. The next time you launch the app, the login item comes back as well. So annoying.

Agreed. Hope Google will fix this, but I won’t bet my money…

 

[zenmacx]

I’m not interacting with any A.I. unless I’m going through Siri as a proxy for privacy.

Surely you jest… 😂

 

[segfaultdotorg]

Why didn't they call it Siri? They're both the same now.

 

[error]

Choose your model doesn't seem to work (click Gemini in the search bar). Shows Loading models forever, can't select actual models.

 

[jennyp]

I hate apps that automatically add themselves to startup login items without asking permission to the user and without a proper opt-out in app's settings.
This app add two items: one under "Open at login" (the main app) and another under "background" (the auto-updater).
Manually removed both.

I see the "open at login" one in system preferences, but where is the "background" one? Is it the "Google LLC" one below it (under "Allow in the Background") ?

 

[jennyp]

I can't sign in with it anyway. Safari can't open the app after logging into Google - "Safari Can't Open the Page" and "Navigation failed because the request was for an HTTP URL with HTTPS-Only enabled, (WebKitErrorDomain:305).

Great start 🙁

 

[Black_Mage]

Surely you jest… 😂

No. I take my privacy seriously, and I don't trust A.I. companies not to use people for free data harvesting. Think about how much money is being invested in A.I. They want a return on that investment, and I predict that all the big tech companies will rely on data collection to help get that return. Apple being the only exception.

 

[GrumpyOldGuy52]

Will this run on my iBook G3?

Yes, if by "on my iBook G3" you mean putting an M-series Mac running this on top of your iBook.

 

[johnsawyercjs]

Nope, I stick with Duck.ia since I barely use AI.

Note that should be duck.ai. I just tried this for the first time, and it looks good.

 

[elemenohme]

Same here, I pay for Pro yet I feel like half my usage every day goes toward “sorry try again” or “oops no connection!”

I subscribed to Claude to try to use the "copilot" features, and it just didn't work. Handy for some online research, but even that is limited by its weird plug-in integration with Chrome that doesn't work reliably.

I'll use whatever Apple eventually ships, since I expect it will be better sandboxed than anything else (even if it's built on Gemini).

 

[Padre_Pio]

I'm going to go ahead and say nope.

It's pretty good.

 

[iObama]

Excited to try this at work. We have access to Gemini, but not having a desktop app/CLI made it feel a decade behind lol. How quickly things move…

 

[Darajavahus]

Why would you use any of these apps instead of DuckDuckGo browser or Safari with Ghostery extension?

 

[iObama]

Why would you use any of these apps instead of DuckDuckGo browser or Safari with Ghostery extension?

Because it’s not just a chatbot — it works with the Terminal on your Mac to write code, access and create files, create apps, etc.

 

[HuskerNKS]

Because it’s not just a chatbot — it works with the Terminal on your Mac to write code, access and create files, create apps, etc.

Exactly...Too many people think AI is just a chatbot. It can be a strategic advisor. You have to give it the context to learn and adjust. Just "prompting" it won't get you what you want.

 

[krakenrelease]

Same here, I pay for Pro yet I feel like half my usage every day goes toward “sorry try again” or “oops no connection!” and then when it finally seems to be working and 90% done it tells me I’ve used my usage up… like c’mon I’m barely asking it to do anything intense

Oh and every 5 minutes it seems to want to update, older chats load very slowly if at all, and it’ll randomly delete new chats I’ve started and then show me my prompt in the textbook as if I never pressed send (but of course it eats up my usage)

I never have those issues with ChatGPT. I’m happy with it. I have access to Claude Opus at work and prefer that for more complex tasks like coding architecture

 

[applefan8254]

Google, please give us a way to silo login to Gemini, and for that matter, a siloed login option to login to all Google apps. I'm not saying you have to give up on the buffet style login, we just want an *option* for siloed login of your products and services. Thank you.

 

[MacMan988]

Google is bad. They steal our data and they do very bad things with them. We are fine with Siri.

 

[GlamCheese666]

Once they add a way to disable the launch on login maybe, but im just sticking with GPT. If I run out of requests, then there's always the web app or phone app ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Unacceptable to not be able to disable that login feature.