{"id":51613,"date":"2026-04-16T15:52:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T19:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=51613"},"modified":"2026-07-13T09:56:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T13:56:17","slug":"gemini-app-for-mac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/16\/gemini-app-for-mac\/","title":{"rendered":"Gemini App for Mac"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.google\/innovation-and-ai\/products\/gemini-app\/gemini-app-now-on-mac-os\/\">Michael Friedman<\/a> (via <a href=\"https:\/\/9to5google.com\/2026\/04\/15\/gemini-app-mac\/\">Abner Li<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/blog.google\/innovation-and-ai\/products\/gemini-app\/gemini-app-now-on-mac-os\/\">\n<p>Today, we&rsquo;re bringing the <a href=\"https:\/\/gemini.google\/mac\/\">Gemini app to macOS<\/a> as a native desktop experience, designed to live right where you work. It&rsquo;s always just a keyboard shortcut away, so you can quickly get the help you need without losing your focus.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>With our new native desktop experience, you can share anything on your screen with Gemini to get help with exactly what you&rsquo;re looking at, including local files. If you&rsquo;re reviewing a complex chart, you can share your window and ask, &lsquo;What are the three biggest takeaways here?&rsquo; to get an instant summary.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2026\/04\/15\/google-gemini-mac-app\/\">Juli Clover<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2026\/04\/15\/google-gemini-mac-app\/\">\n<p>Gemini will need Accessibility access to read full pages in a browser window.<\/p>\n<p>Nano Banana is available for creating images, and Veo can be used for generating videos.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Free access to Gemini is limited, and Google has subscription plans with increased usage limits. Google AI Plus is $7.99 per month, Google AI Pro is $19.99 per month, and Google AI Ultra is $249.99 per month.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.macstories.net\/news\/google-releases-gemini-for-mac\/\">John Voorhees<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.macstories.net\/news\/google-releases-gemini-for-mac\/\">\n<p>Gemini can also interact with files, the contents of a window, Google Drive, Photos, and NotebookLM. It&rsquo;s multimodal, too, with support for the generation of text, images, video, and music. Dig a little deeper into Gemini&rsquo;s menus and you&rsquo;ll find support for Canvas, Deep Research, Guided Learning, and <a href=\"https:\/\/gemini.google\/overview\/personal-intelligence\/\">Personalized Intelligence<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/forums.macrumors.com\/threads\/google-launches-native-gemini-ai-app-for-mac.2481037\/?post=34543484#post-34543484\">Chazak<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/forums.macrumors.com\/threads\/google-launches-native-gemini-ai-app-for-mac.2481037\/?post=34543484#post-34543484\">\n<p>Downloaded it and deleted it 30 minutes later when I found it automatically installs a setting to open automatically as a log in item. Deleting it in system settings does not solve the issue. It automatically returns it to the auto login setting. It takes control of the setting. Invasion of my privacy and control over my own machine. I&rsquo;ve returned to the web app version.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/joshwoodward\/status\/2044452201947627709?s=46\">Josh Woodward<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/x.com\/joshwoodward\/status\/2044452201947627709?s=46\">\n<p>We heard your feedback. We recruited a small team. They built 100+ features in less than 100 days. &#x1F92F;<\/p>\n<p>100% native Swift. Lightning fast.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/sundarpichai\/status\/2044452464724967550\">Sundar Pichai<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/x.com\/sundarpichai\/status\/2044452464724967550\">\n<p>The team built this initial release with @Antigravity, and it went from an idea to a native Swift app prototype in a few days.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@ccgus\/116410242771350931\">Gus Mueller<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@ccgus\/116410242771350931\">\n<p>Took a peak at it and &#8230; it contains 1,856 Objective-C classes whose class name starts with Java.<\/p>\n<p>What in the world are they doing?<\/p>\n<p>So I had Gemini analyze Gemini. Looks like there&rsquo;s a lot of shared Android code in there, but compiled to Objective-C and Swift.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/19\/gemini-3-0-and-antigravity\/\">Gemini 3.0 and Antigravity<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/14\/j2objc\/\">J2ObjC<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"gemini-app-for-mac-update-2026-06-05\">Update (<a href=\"#gemini-app-for-mac-update-2026-06-05\">2026-06-05<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2026\/06\/04\/google-gemini-mac\">John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2026\/06\/04\/google-gemini-mac\">\n<p>The thing that really turns me off about the Gemini Mac app is Google&rsquo;s gall. The Gemini app installs a background helper named &ldquo;GeminiAppLauncher&rdquo; in your login items. It also installs &ldquo;GoogleUpdater&rdquo; as a process with the privilege to launch in the background whenever it wants. Gemini never asks for permission to install either of these, and, most arrogantly, if you, as an informed user, remove either of them, the Gemini app silently adds them back. There is no setting in Gemini to disable this. There&rsquo;s a mindset from some big companies that your system is theirs to play with at the system software level.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/08\/adobe-modifies-your-hosts-file-for-their-analytics\/\">Adobe Modifies Your Hosts File for Their Analytics<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"gemini-app-for-mac-update-2026-06-08\">Update (<a href=\"#gemini-app-for-mac-update-2026-06-08\">2026-06-08<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/9to5mac.com\/2026\/06\/05\/the-better-way-to-use-gemini-on-the-mac\/\">Zac Hall<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/9to5mac.com\/2026\/06\/05\/the-better-way-to-use-gemini-on-the-mac\/\">\n<p>I also have at least one chat thread that doesn&rsquo;t actually work on Gemini&rsquo;s Mac app. It works fine in the Safari &ldquo;Add to Dock&rdquo; version, though, since that&rsquo;s just the website presented as an app. <\/p>\n<p>Instead of letting me continue the chat, Gemini&rsquo;s Mac app replaces the text entry box with a button to open the website. I&rsquo;d rather just use my Safari web app version where it works fine.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p id=\"gemini-app-for-mac-update-2026-07-13\">Update (<a href=\"#gemini-app-for-mac-update-2026-07-13\">2026-07-13<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@agiletortoise\/116898669742644793\">Greg Pierce<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@agiletortoise\/116898669742644793\">\n<p>Y&rsquo;all who want to complain about the ChatGPT Mac app must not have tried the Gemini app. What even is going on with this thing? It doesn&rsquo;t quit when you quit. It&rsquo;s menu bar item forceably injects itself at the far right of the menu bar when launched. Just junkware.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/10\/chatgpt-work-and-chatgpt-classic\/\">ChatGPT Work and ChatGPT Classic<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Friedman (via Abner Li): Today, we&rsquo;re bringing the Gemini app to macOS as a native desktop experience, designed to live right where you work. It&rsquo;s always just a keyboard shortcut away, so you can quickly get the help you need without losing your focus. [&#8230;] With our new native desktop experience, you can share [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2026-04-16T19:52:11Z","apple_news_api_id":"2a033a6c-f7f3-4950-94c1-a46b59f52957","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2026-07-13T13:56:22Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AKgM6bPfzSVCUwaRrWfUpVw","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1351,2347,84,2296,30,32,2598,2742,54,901],"class_list":["post-51613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-bard","tag-java","tag-login-items","tag-mac","tag-macapp","tag-macos-15-sequoia","tag-macos-tahoe-26","tag-objective-c","tag-swift-programming-language"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51613"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52592,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51613\/revisions\/52592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}