Expanding Reach: Google’s Gemini Now Available on Legacy Android Devices

Google is really committed to its Gemini chatbot. The company recently gave people the option to replace the standard Google Assistant app with Gemini, with Assistant taking over regular queries and Gemini stepping in for more complex ones. However, the app was only supported on Android phones running Android 12 or higher. Now, though, that requirement is being lowered.

Google’s Gemini AI is now supported on phones running at least Android 10 or higher. This means that if you don’t happen to have an Android phone with a newer Android version, you can still join the fun. Android 10 was released in late 2019, and it’s the newest official update that phones such as the Galaxy S9 series, released in early 2018, got. So if you’re still on one of these older phones, you can ask Gemini all the questions you want. On these older devices, you can even replace your regular Google Assistant with the new AI-fueled experience, if that’s something you want to do. That functionality didn’t work well when Gemini was first released, but now it’s at least a little bit better at the tasks Assistant usually handles.

Android 10 is an abandoned operating system by now, but Google is in no rush to cut off its users just yet. After all, this is the company that finally killed Android 4.4 KitKat, an operating system released 11 years ago, just last year . Furthermore, a big chunk of Android users are at least on Android 10. 2019 was a big year for budget phones from the likes of Xiaomi, Oppo, and Realme globally, and a bunch of those phones got updated to at least Android 10. Android fragmentation hasn’t stopped being a problem, so Google might as well just roll with it.

You can download the Gemini app on the Google Play Store. It’s also available on iPhone and iPads from the Google app—if you have access, you should see a tab for switching between Gemini and regular Google search at the top of the screen. Gemini is also accessible on all mobile and desktop devices through the gemini.google.com web app.

Source: 9to5Google

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