Gemini on Android can't ID songs, and it's frustrating | TechCrunch - eviltoast

The author says that once you install Gemini (pro), when you ask “what song is this”, you get a reply like “use apple’s Shazam”.

They say Google assistant music recognition was working so well and super accurate.

Although I was never able to have it work. When I ask “what song is this” I can only get one of this two results:

  1. Sorry, I didn’t understand (90% of cases)
  2. Search “what song is this” on Google

My use cases are:

  1. In car listening to radio. I never have it work.
  2. Know which song is playing right now on the device when I’m using headphones. It never worked but it should be trivial, you already have all the metadata already. My iPod touch could do this super reliably and 100% offline TWENTY YEARS ago. It was so useful.
  • 𝙚𝙧𝙧𝙚@programming.dev
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    8 months ago

    I was surprised to find Gemini had replaced assistant. It couldn’t even add items to the shopping list. Thankfully one is able to revert the change.

    • Death__BySnuSnu@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Gemini can’t do a damn thing. It’s completely useless as a digital assistant. It can’t even play music on YouTube Music. Who thought it would be a good idea to replace the Google Assistant with this?

    • Moonrise2473@feddit.itOP
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      8 months ago

      Don’t need to install a dedicated third party app for that, the Google app already exposes a widget for sound search

  • GroundedGator@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I’m always using assistant to play music in the car or on home speakers. Gemini isn’t able to do this. I also discovered I can’t use the Gemini app without allowing it to replace the assistant.

    I will say I have had similar problems getting assistant to identify songs. It used to work pretty seamlessly.

    Against all privacy recommendations I do allow my phone to id music at all times. Nice thing is I have a shortcut to history, it doesn’t always work, bit does most of the time.

  • Eager Eagle@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    wow - surely not being able to recognize songs totally defeats the purpose of an assistant

    /s

    Shazam solved music recognition 20y ago, just stop whining and use a tool that has this feature.

    That’s like complaining my coffee maker doesn’t make tea.

    • Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      Google Assistant could do it.

      So it’s more like complaining that your coffee maker stopped making the water hot.

      • bandwidthcrisis@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Pixels just do it automatically on the lock screen, no need for assistant, or even going online, it works just on the phone.

        • LCP@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          It’s pretty good but it works with a limited database stored on your phone.

          With Google Assistant’s music recognition you get to access a larger database stored on their servers.

      • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        A better comparison would be that your coffee maker’s RGB light no longer supports a specific off-shade of pink.

          • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Yeah, and it’s almost like that is still an ongoing thing hence it’s quite understandable that Gemini is severly unfinished and broken for now.

            • Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works
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              8 months ago

              Ah yes Google is well known for achieving feature parity with its own competing apps before axing them after all.

              • Eager Eagle@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                if that was the case they would have just embedded gemini into the assistant app and raised the middle finger to all their user base

                • Moonrise2473@feddit.itOP
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                  8 months ago

                  There’s a big bonus and promotion for the Gemini’s product manager. That means GA is on the death row.

                  They’re already removing features from GA, so “reaching parity” is faster

                • Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works
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                  8 months ago

                  They ran Gmail and Inbox concurrently before axing one and not reaching feature parity.

                  They ran Google Music and YouTube music concurrently before axing one and not reaching feature parity.

                  Etc.

                  So why would that be the case?

                • ThrowawayOnLemmy@lemmy.world
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                  8 months ago

                  Umm… they’re doing this. I literally was prompted the other day to test out Gemini as my assistant app. Granted this was my fuckup by opting in, but I thought it’d at least have the basics… Now I can’t set reminders, or look up my calendar info with my voice like I used to. Not being able to identify songs is just as equally ridiculous. It barely searches.

    • Moonrise2473@feddit.itOP
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      8 months ago

      Google assistant is already almost useless (at least in my language, I get almost always a “sorry, I didn’t understand” answer, but your mileage may vary), a newer version that can’t interact with anything seems pointless.

      “Send Whatsapp to…” - “I can’t interact with Whatsapp”

      “Turn off the lights” - “I don’t have access to this”

      “Identify this song” - “use our competitor’s app”

      • Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        GA was amazing years ago, it’s gotten consistently worse over time to the point I’ve stopped using it in my home for anything other than asking today’s weather when I wake up.