The better way to use Gemini on the Mac

Back in April, Google joined OpenAI and Anthropic in offering a dedicated Mac app for its AI chatbot software. Two months later, it’s clear that Gemini for Mac isn’t as good as it could be.

Because I’m interested in AI technology and its progression over time, I’ve used Gemini on my Mac regularly since before the Mac app was rumored.

I’m also a Safari user. For that reason, my solution to using Gemini on the Mac has been Safari’s “Add to Dock” feature.

When Gemini first arrived on the Mac as a dedicated app, I still preferred my Safari “Add to Dock” instance. I just like that Command + N opens a new chat window, and I can have many open chat windows.

This way of multitasking is better for me than switching between conversation threads. I’m more likely to forget about a task in a chat thread if it’s not an open window on my Mac.

I also have at least one chat thread that doesn’t actually work on Gemini’s Mac app. It works fine in the Safari “Add to Dock” version, though, since that’s just the website presented as an app.

Instead of letting me continue the chat, Gemini’s Mac app replaces the text entry box with a button to open the website. I’d rather just use my Safari web app version where it works fine.

The use of the word “yet” in the message is doing a lot of work at this point.

Another complaint is the icon. Gemini’s Mac app is in icon jail.

Icon jail is a dumb Apple behavior for app icons on macOS Tahoe that aren’t drawn in the exact shape and size that Apple forces.

While that’s an Apple-forced problem for Mac apps that predate Apple’s dumb rule, the Gemini Mac app arrived months after macOS Tahoe was released.

Then there’s the thing that prompted me to mention how I’m using Gemini on my Mac in the first place.

This week on Daring Fireball, John Gruber wrote about why he uninstalled the Gemini Mac app:

This made me realize that I’ve literally kept the Gemini Mac app around just to check for app updates. While there are occasional updates, they haven’t fixed my two issues with the software yet.