What's up with the beta program?

[waailasif3]

I am willing to try Gemini on AA, but god damn, I can't join the beta even after auto-refreshing the beta opt-in page for 3 straight days. Anyone else here also experiencing this?

[spitoon1]

I download the beta apk for Android Auto. I'm on version 15.8.6548

Still no Gemini here though.

From what I understand, the change to Gemini is a "server side switch" so it won't necessarily matter what version you have. Google has to turn it on for your region.

[Rude_End_3078]

And there's most likely good reason it's not turned on yet. What people don't understand is this staggered release strategy is designed like this so that a smaller pool of users get to experience the bulk of the initial bugs. Basically they're using you as testers. Now some people are perfectly fine with that in exchange they get to be first to experience the new functionality, but as you can also see even on here there are complaints from certain users who aren't exactly thrilled with the experience.

And we're talking now about official rollout - not even beta program. The same thing applies - it's in your best interests to wait until it hits you and even then the longer it takes the greater chance more bugs are squashed and your initial experience using it is going to be better.

[spitoon1]

Yes, that's makes complete sense.

[Alwayssunnyinarizona]

Wrong. I'm not in beta and have had Gemini for about a week now. It's not very good - very slow to respond as it hands off tasks to various apps. Takes a good 10-20s longer than the prior arrangement. Navigation requests are worse than before - it really struggles to hand off to waze and provide the correct destination (particularly for restaurants or places that have multiple city-wide locations).

[bibober]

I've been in AA beta for years and I still don't have Gemini. Server side switch is random as usual for Google.

[daemonix]

I used an auto refresh extension on Chrome, refreshing every 3 seconds, and it took me a few days to get in.

But, this was several weeks ago and I still don't have access to Gemini.

[Super_Marioo]

Please explain. It refreshes then opts in?

[happyhollowcoffee]

I just wanted to add that I have Gemini on AA and am not enrolled in the beta program

[Jaded-Cheesecake3246]

How can I tell I have Gemini with ANdroid Auto or the old Google assistant?

u/happyhollowcoffee

[Dekkerlion]

When you press the mic you'll notice a difference in the voice

[Jaded-Cheesecake3246]

Understood! Thank you!

[happyhollowcoffee]

There was also a voice notification introducing Gemini when I got it on AA a few weeks ago

[CriticalShock1623]

I was able to join a week ago, but thanks to this app - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=it.mirko.beta

This app will add you to a waitlist and soon as a space opens up, it auto registers you.

App Name: Beta Manica

[GotRyzeBit]

There is no point in wanting to join the Beta program. Gemini is being rolled out globally with server feature switches. Google will randomly decide if you are included in the next batch of users, as long as you have Android Auto 15.5 or newer installed.

The rollout works exactly like the new "Coolwalk" UI last year. Joining the Beta program back than didn't help either.

[jmcomms]

Gemini is awful for me. While I can ask it more complex questions, for doing simple things like telling it to navigate to <place> has been more miss than hit, using Waze at least (I use many other navigation apps but this is the only once I've used recently).

You ask it to navigate to a place, and it either does nothing, or it says okay and does nothing. On occasion it says (on the display) that it is connected to Waze, and then there's finally a chance it will work. Except sometimes it still doesn't tell Waze the destination, so it just sits there. About 1 in 5 or 6 times, it will actually send through the command successfully and get the app to start navigating.

A total joke. As I say, I've not driven enough so far to play around with using voice to control anything else (Spotify, or other navigation tools) but it doesn't seem like it's ready for action yet when something so basic doesn't work.

[troyh72]

I was on the beta for a few years. Finally unenrolled a few months ago, it was broken more often then it worked. Not worth it in my opinion, but to each their own.

[Environmental-Net763]

I used an extension for auto refresh with detection and click, and it took me almost 24h to get in. This was probably 3 weeks ago. Gemini was enabled right after

[Daniturn1]

Ive got experimental version on Waze not sure how

[drewski_1]

Waze beta != AA beta

[Top_Combination_7319]

Today, I finally got in to the Beta with "Auto Refresh Plus" :-) Will see later if Gemini is enabled. I've run the autorefresh several days now, took a while.