Earlier this week, Google Messages more widely rolled out the ability to hide the Gemini button. That option came just in time as a new design — which may be a bug — for that FAB is a bit much.
After previously being a small floating action button (FAB) with just the sparkle icon, “Gemini” has now been added. As such, you now have two floating action buttons of equal width. (Start chat is ever so slightly taller to my eye.)
As you scroll, both shrink down to rounded squares. It’s possible that this is a bug, with Google implementing a normal FAB by mistake in the latest beta build (version 20240812_01_RC00) today.
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The previous design was passable, but this one is obtrusive and looks silly. Fortunately, you can disable it from Settings > Gemini in Messages.
From a design perspective, this just looks bloated, while obscuring a not insignificant amount of content. I was going to keep the previous Gemini button enabled, but this design looks bad.
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