On Thursday Google launched a dedicated app for its AI-powered assistant, Gemini, on iOS globally. Until now, iOS users either had to use the Google app or mobile web to chat with the AI technology.
The new Gemini iOS app supports text-based prompts in 35 languages. Plus, users can have a conversation with Gemini through its Gemini Live feature in 12 languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, Hindi, Portuguese, Arabic, Italian, Indonesian, Japanese, Turkish, and Vietnamese. Google said it aims to introduce support for additional languages soon.
While some of the other features of Gemini, such as asking it to suggest recipes or seeking help for studies, were already available through the Google app and mobile web, Gemini Live is a new addition to the native iOS app.
App users can also generate images through Google’s Imagen 3 model. In August, the company started allowing Gemini Advanced, Business and Enterprise users to create images of people again after pausing the feature for months following criticism around the model generating photos with historical inaccuracies.
Users can also use extensions to ask Gemini questions about information related to other Google accounts they may have, like Gmail, Maps, YouTube, and Calendar.
Google released the Gemini Android app in February, first in the U.S. and later in countries including Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, and the U.K. The company gradually added support for Japanese, Korean, Spanish, and Portuguese. Google also brought the Gemini app to India — and other South Asian countries, such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka — with support for nine local languages by June.
Notably, Apple’s Siri integration with ChatGPT is currently live in the iOS 18.2 public beta, which means all users could get this feature in a few weeks’ time. Earlier this year, during its Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple announced its plans to integrate Google Gemini with Apple Intelligence in the future.
“We’re looking forward to integrating with other models, including Google Gemini, for instance, in the future,” Apple SVP Craig Federighi said in a conversation during the event. Google launching Gemini on iOS is possibly the first step in that direction.
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