The past few months have made one thing crystal clear: phones remain undefeated. The AI gadgets that were supposed to save us from our phones have arrived woefully underbaked — whatever illusions we might have held that the Humane AI pin or the Rabbit R1 were going to offer any kind of salve for the constant rug burn of dealing with our personal tech is gone. Hot Gadget Spring is over and developer season is upon us, starting with Google I/O this coming Tuesday.
Gemini launched as an AI-fueled alternative to the standard Google Assistant a little over three months ago, and it didn’t feel quite ready yet. On day one, it couldn’t access your calendar or set a reminder — not super helpful. Google has added those functions since then, but it still doesn’t support third-party media apps like Spotify. Google Assistant has supported Spotify for most of the last decade.