The Gemini app is now on Mac
blog.google
blog.google
First impressions of the native app: I think I will save RAM and it will be faster - Cool. Download, install, sign in - Easy. Change the keyboard shortcuts - Simple. cmd + N to open a new chat - better than cmd + shift + O in the web app.
Back to work, a few moments pass.
super + C - ... wait ... there is a noticable delay in opening the app?
Maybe try the new mini chat? - Same delay 800+ms?
Thats annoying, every other app on my mac switches instantly?
Why is this slow? The delay long enough that you break my flow and make me think spending the RAM is worth it for the old web version? Whats the point of native if its slow?
Second grip - the text layout is too wide to read comfortably. At least give me the option to put it in a more narrow layout. I use every app full screen so reading text across the full width of my screen is pretty awkward.
Anyway I'll give it a go and see if it grows on me but right now the web app feels more polished and responsive so I will likely switch back.
Edit: typos
Well done and thank you.
If I was to ask for more there are a few things that Claude and Codex are doing better on. Way more integrations / skills. I wish I could use MCPs and skills here. Modern design and feel too. This design, while native, feels very outdated
Does this have console like Claude and codex?
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I was able to install and use Gemini on macOS fine authentication worked. I had some issues authenticating with the cli app, some certificate issues.
Once I got past the certificate issues, now it will not let me use the cli code assist without verifying that I am 18+ but I can use the UI app just fine without the verification.
To verify, seems to require submitting a government issued ID or credit card.
No thanks. This kind of stuff is why I dropped google long ago.
Personally I've really liked OpenCode's TUI, but maybe on a superficial level of "this looks good and feels ergonomic to me".
Gemini cli felt clunky for me when I tried a while ago, but maybe it's better now? I do like how it's open source and I'm wondering if it can be made as model agnostic as OpenCode.
Do you use Gemini 3.1 pro or the flash model or just auto? Any feelings about quality vs other models?
It's the only one that consistently just starts breaking shit without prompting.
I'll give it something like "investigate this issue: <stack trace>" and tab out.
Then I come back and the motherfucker has rewritten half the codebase. This has happened MULTIPLE times.
I saw a joke on Reddit: Anthropic doesn't let you use claude with 3rd party harnesses. Google doesn't even let you use Gemini with their own harness.
It lacks obvious features that all the others have, crashes constantly, breaks so badly you lose work at least once a week, is seldom updated, and worse was recently crippled even further intentionally.
Google has had load issues forever. Their most recent solution has been to throttle CLI users to the point that it's almost useless. The only way to get decent service is to pay per query with the API now.
I cancelled my Ultra plan and went to ChatGPT. They still let you chose your preferred tool. Meanwhile, Googles forums and github are filled with wailing and gnashing of teeth, but Google customer service policy is the same as it was when they just did search: reproachful silence.
https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli/discussions/2297...
I used gemini for past few months as using Safari's add to dock feature. Been waiting for gemini app tho as web version is just so buggy.
Android feels like more of a liability than an asset to Google these days.
Other than that agreed going okay so far.
Can’t even use the new Gemma on device model… no model selection besides fast/normal/thinking.
Also requires Google login
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.
I couldn't even get the Gemini VSCode plugin to work so haven't tried that, just kept asking me to log in and saw others reporting the same.
So yeah...
Yes there's Claude Code, but I just can't stand them with woke politics, limits, poor prompt adherence. ChatGPT has been ok, but mostly same chat window (with terrible model hallucination). At least in google's ai studio you can interrupt using keyboard.
Personally, I built a full custom agent stack so I can have full control. There should be lots of options these days for beyond just chat. Search my HN or GitHub history if you want more details on my take.
The Gemini app is kind of terrible (apart from the models) but Gemma 4 runs great locally already.
That’s why I started using OpenCode for this. It works pretty well, the web UI comes pretty close to a general chat app. You can use folders to organize your sessions like projects (which annoyingly Gemini still doesn’t have) with files and extra instructions.
It’s pretty powerful.
For example pi-dev, but even Codex is open source and it should work with any locally-hosted model, e.g. by using the OpenAI-compatible API provided by llama-server.
I have not used pi-dev until now, but the recent presentation of pi-dev by its developer (reported on other HN threads) has convinced me that he is among the people who can distinguish good from bad, which unfortunately cannot be said about many people creating AI applications.
So I intend to switch to using pi-dev as a coding assistant for my locally-hosted models, but I do not have yet results demonstrating that this is the right choice, besides its lead developer being more trustworthy than the others.
One thing I’m considering (depending on how happy I am with OpenCode after trying to remove some questionable functionality it has) would be to make Pi (or Codex) speak the OpenCode protocol so that its web UI can be used with it.
- Can't adjust font display size
- Can't open multiple chat windows at once
- Can't Cmd+F within a chat to find content
Hoping it succeeds, waiting until it does.
Have been seeing that happen consistently where older chats have some messages missing in between
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
1. Can we agree that this kind of corporate tradition does in fact exist at Google?
2. Can we agree that Google has a history of treating projects this way?
It doesn't matter if a snarky dismissal has some basis in reality; after all, pretty much every snarky dismissal does. The point is we don't want HN to be a snarky place. You're welcome to raise the topic of Google's corporate traditions in a curious, conversational style, just like anything else.
This comment was not meant to sound snarky (while the original one in fact was - am guilty).
Sometimes it feels like polite comment will go nowhere while being blunt may convey a more focused message. Not in this case though, I agree.