Key Takeaways
- The Gemini app for Android is receiving an update with a slightly tweaked user interface.
- Google has also made a small change to the ‘+’ icon that lets you add attachments to Gemini.
- These minor UI changes are reportedly part of the Google app’s latest beta, but it may not be widely available.
Google Gemini may have had its initial stumbles, but it is still one of the best AI chatbots you can find today. Thanks to frequent updates to the underlying AI model, Gemini keeps getting smarter with each update, with a report this week suggesting that Gemini 2.0 could be just around the corner. In the meantime, Google continues to tweak the Gemini app for Android with a focus on simplicity, and a new update takes another step in that direction.
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First spotted by the folks at 9to5Google, Google is making a couple of subtle changes to the Gemini app’s home screen interface, beginning with the + sign that lets you add images or files. This icon is no longer housed inside a circle and is visibly larger. The most noticeable change here is the updated dark mode theming of the pill-shaped container that hosts the microphone and camera icons.
In its previous form, this container featured a light blue background regardless of the display preferences. That’s now changing with the container now adopting a gray color when dark mode is enabled. It takes a lighter gray shade when dark mode is off, which is also a nice touch. 9to5Google reportedly found these UI adjustments within the Google app version 15.42 (beta), though I haven’t seen these design tweaks on my device yet.
Gemini has been on a roll lately
Old Google Gemini homepage design vs the updated design in dark and standard modes
Away from these UI adjustments, Google has been busy adding more Gemini-related features to its existing apps. Only this week, Google Chat received a Gemini-powered boost with Summaries, aimed at saving you the precious time required to go through each unread conversation.
We also know that Google is looking to supercharge Gemini’s capabilities by allowing users to trigger the chatbot for calls and texts even if the phone is locked. Meanwhile, Gemini picked up support for the powerful Imagen 3 text-to-speech model earlier this month, giving its image generation capabilities a substantial boost.
