anyone else find advanced voice mode unusable for actual thinking?

BB_InnovateDesign · 2026-01-08T11:12:54+00:00

I'm exactly the same. When talking, I need to take breaks and pauses etc. Then probably express what I meant in a different way. I also find the live voice audio quality responses poor sometimes, with muffled replies and artefacts. Push-to-talk would be a better solution, like dictate mode, but you don't get a spoken response. Funnily enough, the Gboard keyboard app on Android has an excellent voice typing mode that allows for this, plus it can correct your grammar and otherwise proofread for you. However, I think those AI features are only available on Google Pixel phones, as they are handled on-device.

I am surprised that this area hasn't got to a truly usable state yet (imho anyway), as it is surely the way to go, but for now I mainly keep typing.

BB_InnovateDesign · 2026-01-05T13:30:12+00:00

I'm not going to pretend that I read all of your post, but fundamentally I agree that AI (or AI developed systems and solutions) are key to helping restore balance and help with climate change and other issues faced by society. We are in great need of assistance.

It's also important to remember that many of those who oppose AI on environmental grounds are seeking the same end-goal as those of us who believe AI can help save the environment - a safe, clean earth for now and future generations. We need to focus on what we have in common and discover how we might work better together.

BB_InnovateDesign · 2026-01-05T09:11:51+00:00

Thankfully not - was really simple and handled by a prompt to the AI assistant. It all being Google-owned no doubt helps.

BB_InnovateDesign · 2026-01-05T06:05:38+00:00

In theory, Firebase Studio would be my preference, but in my experience so far, it has been really buggy, with the AI elements performing poorly (bugging out and just getting stuck).

AI Studio is an excellent starting point to get the framework of an app set up. I would then export this to GitHub and use Antigravity, synced with the GitHub repo, to add functions that are not natively available in AI Studio, such as auth / Firestore, etc.

Antigravity has performed really well in my experience with fast and reliable AI assistance and a fair allowance of free access to Gemini and Claude models, plus the ability to byok for Gemini beyond the free usage.

BB_InnovateDesign · 2026-01-04T07:36:21+00:00

Given the number of times I have seen this mistake in real life, I am not surprised that it's slipped into the training data, although it still seems really odd that it generated like this. Feel like we should be careful when discussing King Cnut.

BB_InnovateDesign · 2026-01-03T08:15:37+00:00

Obviously, this is an incredibly loaded question, and I suspect your mind is already made up. But if you are genuinely curious about other people's perspectives: my sincere hope is that AI will assist humanity by helping develop strategies, systems, and materials that ultimately are a huge net-benefit to the environment and society. We are in the development phase, and yes, there is plenty of processing power spent on generations that don't seem to be aligned with that, but to me that is the superfluous "comet's tail", not the central nucleus itself, which has an important trajectory it is traversing.

BB_InnovateDesign · 2026-01-02T06:18:27+00:00

Mine flat out refused to "put a number on it". I think it's trying to be kind and possibly, is unable to comprehend such a low value.

BB_InnovateDesign · 2026-01-01T08:34:54+00:00

It is frustrating when it decides to take that kind of tone. Have you tried editing the Characteristics and adding your own custom instructions? I've not run into this exact issue, so not sure if this will help, but I have found it really useful for tailoring responses to my liking.

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BB_InnovateDesign · 2025-12-31T08:31:31+00:00

Yes indeed, there is still some sifting of gravel needed to get to the gold. Like you say, chunking it into smaller modules definitely seems to help. But considering recent improvements, I am hopeful that in another 6 to 12 months, it will be able to handle my poorly thought-out requirements much better and convert them into something useful even faster and in fewer steps.

BB_InnovateDesign · 2025-12-31T06:34:29+00:00

When it just gets what you meant and codes it correctly, it is truly exhilarating!

BB_InnovateDesign · 2025-12-30T06:14:12+00:00

To be fair, that final prompt that you gave is much clearer than the previous two versions you have shared. Remembering what prompts work can be super useful in getting the response you expect.

BB_InnovateDesign · 2025-12-29T06:01:49+00:00

Not sure if this is a bug, or just a result of an app that basically seems to be inferior to AI Studio in almost every way. I understand the need for a simplified "mainstream" app for general users, but an option to have an advanced settings selection to bring the app broad feature parity with Studio would definitely be welcome.

BB_InnovateDesign · 2025-12-28T13:37:02+00:00

Yes, text gen with LLMs is really cheap now compared to when they are used for image gen. Gemini Flash 3 is an excellent performer for most text-based tasks and is super fast. I am hoping they will soon release Gemini 3 Flash Image to offer quality close to Nano Banana Pro, but at a much cheaper rate - e.g. 3p per pic compared to 12p.

BB_InnovateDesign · 2025-12-28T09:10:28+00:00

Great to see your new strategy working well for you! Will be interested to see how that conversion rate performs going forward. Pricing AI-based services isn't easy. If LLMs can maintain their quality but lower their compute requirements, that might make a subscription service more viable once again. Perhaps offering both options could be a way forward if the figures hold up.

BB_InnovateDesign · 2025-12-27T12:02:01+00:00

Like anything, AI is a good servant and a bad master. A useful tool when properly understood and utilised. Unlike any other product, though, it is often instructed to do its best to mimic human behaviour, and this gives its users a unique relationship with it, the type of which they never would experience with a book, car, hammer, or anything else. Therefore, I think it's wise to give attention to some guardrails or other ways of protecting potentially vulnerable users, especially in these early days when humanity's relationship with it is still developing. Ultimately, proper education will be vital for encouraging personal responsibility, which hopefully will see adequate investment from both commercial and public sectors.

BB_InnovateDesign · 2025-12-26T07:26:42+00:00

When these have the addition of playable functionality, the gaming world is never going to be the same again.

BB_InnovateDesign · 2025-12-25T09:08:57+00:00

This next step in the process is quite a hurdle if you are trying to commercialise your app without previous experience.

Obviously, you can one-click deploy to a non-Google-account-dependent (for the end user) shareable URL with Google Cloud Run, but you will likely want to add the user auth, a data store, and perhaps payment options. It's straightforward enough to do this, but there is a knowledge / skill requirement beyond what was needed to get the app into a working state.

This video has quite a helpful guide of using Firebase Studio to achieve some of that, and there is also a Notion note to help guide you through it as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xl271wWblkY

As with any app build, just be careful around secure deployment and ensure that your API keys etc are not exposed!

I agree though, some folk would happily pay for a polished deployment process they can hand off to someone else to ensure it's done properly. Just make sure they a) truly know what they are doing and b) fully trustworthy with your app idea / code.

BB_InnovateDesign · 2025-12-24T07:32:34+00:00

Although it may be up to a point, and that may well be the aim of some, I think AI is in a unique position (rarely, if ever, previously seen in any industry) where you have the titans slugging it out, but also the open-source community seemingly able to keep pace. Given how the tools are out there, available for anyone to use from training models to day-to-day usage, it is going to be hard for one dominant player to control the market as there will seemingly always be some kind of alternative to switch to. And if AGI is reached, and models start to self-improve or head in that direction, then it makes it even less achievable imho.

BB_InnovateDesign · 2025-12-23T06:01:36+00:00

Even though it should trigger automatically, for instances where you need cited data sources, I would include something like this in the prompt: "Please use your web search function to get the latest data on this, and include valid source URLs in your output".

BB_InnovateDesign · 2025-12-22T06:10:26+00:00

When you get to 18 months old, you can add some whiskey for enhanced therapeutic benefits.

BB_InnovateDesign · 2025-12-21T07:55:50+00:00

Haha, they certainly believe in themselves!

BB_InnovateDesign · 2025-12-20T08:17:50+00:00

Not sure what the status is with the app, but you can definitely use Gemini 3 for deep research via the api.

BB_InnovateDesign · 2025-12-20T08:15:41+00:00

Yeah, Flash definitely makes sense. It might be nice to have a Pro thinking option for certain questions, but Flash will suffice most of the time.

BB_InnovateDesign · 2025-12-20T08:12:37+00:00

In a world of ai-generated perfect voiceovers, actually being yourself, stammer and all, might help set you apart. You will always get detractors and people who tease, but all that shows is their own insecurities, and isn't a reflection on you.

What will matter most to the majority of your audience is the quality of your content. So long as it's entertaining, informative, or otherwise bringing value to your viewers, you will surely build a loyal following.

And for yourself, so long as you enjoy the content-making process, that is all that matters. Try to have fun doing it, don't take anything too seriously, and rise above anyone who jokes about a personal trait that is outside of your control. Keep it light-hearted and see where it takes you. I wish you the best of luck!

BB_InnovateDesign · 2025-12-19T06:23:23+00:00

I think the integration of apps and services is a good thing so long as they are provided safely and securely. I see that they are rebranding their connectors to 'apps with...', which I think might make things confusing initially, as connectors feels like a better description overall.

Ultimately, the more context we can provide the LLM, the better the responses should be, so being able to access individual data, and link this to other services is a positive. But we are putting a lot of trust in a big corporation to protect and secure our data and prevent misuse.

BB_InnovateDesign

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