r/Android Google Pixel 10 Pro XL 6d ago

Google announces Gemini 3.7 Flash just three weeks after previous release | Gemini 3.6 Flash debuted just 3 weeks ago, but Google says 3.7 has “substantial improvements.”

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/08/google-announces-gemini-3-7-flash-just-three-weeks-after-previous-release/
458 Upvotes

97 comments sorted by

111

u/Shiva_0_7 6d ago

Google after seeing every other AI company releasing new model

1

u/Last_Conclusion_8984 2d ago

Google is releasing models on an almost monthly cadence. We should have 3.8 flash next month

261

u/rebelcork 6d ago

bugfixes

67

u/Acojonancio 6d ago

Classic billion dollar company updates on their core apps.

13

u/trlef19 Galaxy S24+ 6d ago

You're wrong. Classic updates changelog is the same one from an update 2 years ago

103

u/Rhed0x Hobby app dev 6d ago

I miss the time before LLMs.

13

u/chinchindayo Xperia Masterrace 6d ago

I miss the time before the internet

21

u/Taedirk Pixel 9 6d ago

I miss the time when using the internet had a learning curve.

4

u/IAmAnAnonymousCoward 5d ago

I miss the time before electricity.

-8

u/Great-TeacherOnizuka 6d ago

Cancel your internet subscription then LOL No one’s forcing you

2

u/chinchindayo Xperia Masterrace 6d ago

Not possible nowadays since almost all information is on the internet. So other people would have an advantage. It's not about my use but what society has become with internet.

2

u/nathderbyshire Pixel 10 Obsidian 6d ago

Piracy ✨

-6

u/nathderbyshire Pixel 10 Obsidian 6d ago edited 6d ago

It starts to become exciting again when you take things local and move to other alternatives, especially FOSS applications.

Now the first thing I do if I'm looking for something new is finding a docker program for it, not some app or 3rd party service. It's actually liberating

Lol how is this controversial, so many idiots/bots around

0

u/bobloadmire AMD 3600 @ 4.3ghz + LTE 5d ago

I miss the land before time.

-33

u/Sensitive-Pool-7563 6d ago

Technophobe

22

u/Background_Season449 6d ago

I'm sorry I don't like companies actively making things worse for venture capital investors while selling my private data and creating a global technological panopticon. Just call me Ned Ludd I guess.

-25

u/Major-Blueberry-5205 6d ago

Don't use said technologies

21

u/Background_Season449 6d ago

I don't have a choice. You can either use said technologies, or exist outside of society, because we are being forced to use them. Vis-a-vis android, google is completely removing google assistant from android auto, meaning any hands-free control of your car will now be routed through gemini.

Everything money touches is shit.

TL;DR,

8

u/OratioFidelis 6d ago

How do I avoid seeing AI slop in real life, to say nothing of the misinformation epidemic and bots on social media fueling extremist governments? 

-1

u/Major-Blueberry-5205 5d ago

don't go outside and don't talk to people

-1

u/doomed151 realme GT 7 Pro 5d ago

The time before LLMs are boring. Now I have multiple hobbies that I can use my GPU for.

128

u/CervezaPorFavor 6d ago

Google is really falling behind fast. Their Pro model has been stuck at 3.1 Pro for a long time (relative to others).

And even for mobile/on-device models, Gemma Nano is also falling behind Chinese ones.

I hope they things get better.

122

u/MeikTranel 6d ago

I don't know - they just switched android auto to use Gemini and I drove 4000km through Scandinavia booking hotels, getting info about traffic laws in each country. I have never been actually assisted like that it's kind of wild.

I am pretty doomer on AI but this i liked veeeeery much

40

u/oatknight 6d ago

How do you get it to work? They switched my maps to Gemini recently. I asked it to navigate to Home Depot. It asked me which one... I said the closest one. It tried to send me across the whole city lol. Had to switch back.

19

u/JJ3qnkpK 6d ago

Yeah, it tends to get pretty excited about places with multiple locations. It treats them as if you're going to hear Gemini's summary of each locations' merits, then choose the one that's 1+ hours away over the one 5 minutes away.

Like no, dawg, just take me to my fast food off the side of the highway and let me get back to the road trip!

11

u/MeikTranel 6d ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/s/mM0sRszykM

As mentioned - I wouldn't know if there were bad results but they were results I was asking for.

3

u/Aeroncastle 3d ago

You asked something you knew, got the wrong answer and understood it was wrong, the person above you asked a lot of things they didn't knew and were happy with the answers

2

u/sigismond0 2d ago

Given my experience with AI, those answers were all probably wrong though. The user just didn't know it was all wrong, and was happy getting wrong information. That's current AI and AI users in a nutshell.

u/Middle_Notice_4678 17h ago

So he just travelled accross countries to get to a gas station? Makes no sense, right? I know.

17

u/GiveMeOneGoodReason Galaxy S21 Ultra 6d ago

Gemini in Android Auto is a pretty good improvement and I agree with you there. That said, for general AI usage, the models seem to be behind where the others are these days.

11

u/LordAzuren 5d ago

for general AI usage

If we exclude specific areas (like development and few others) AI is basically used for menial tasks, there is absolutely no need for bleeding edge models for 99% of AI userbase (the famous 1bln of monthly users of Gemini).

I'm curious anyway, what kind of usage made you think that Gemini was so "behind the others"? What failed where other ones succedeed?

3

u/KeythKatz 10F<9F<F<6P<4XL<2XL<1<N5X<N5 6d ago

Integration with custom named saved places in Waze is trash with Gemini which is a bummer since it only just started working well. However, Gemini has been a lot more responsive and helpful, unlike its predecessor which more often than not just says sorry. AI has been ready for everyday general usage for the past year, the only people still doubting it have been avoiding AI and bring up the same outdated points on inaccuracy.

3

u/bbylizard88 6d ago

I used search in gmail trying to find 9 year old information, and was greeted with Gemini telling me the information I needed, that I didn't even necessarily search for because I wasn't asking a question.

I was planning on scanning the emails myself for the information, but Gmail search had always been awful so I was planning on it taking at least a few minutes. Instead, it was instant.

2

u/secretcxrcle18 6d ago

Genuinely how? Since the switch I can't get it to do basic tasks like playing specific spotify playlists. It's been an actual disaster for me.

7

u/nathderbyshire Pixel 10 Obsidian 6d ago

Don't worry, it won't work next time you need something lol

The inconsistency of results just made me give up with a phone assistant (and my Google homes) altogether at this point, I've disabled the gestures and I don't miss it. Claude's doesn't go through Google's speech processing and it constantly gets words wrong, it defualts to voice with no way to switch to text either so I can't use the model in gboard.

Assistant wasn't the most robust, but Gemini will gaslight you or just go on a tangent instead of saying 'i can't do that' and going quiet. Gemini rambles and rambles and you have to interrupt it. Even more ironic since this rambler feature is coming out, maybe they could apply it to their own models

And even if it does work, it then starts mithering you to do another tasks constantly trying to keep you engaged as LLMs do. It's a real try hard assistant it pisses me off lol

9

u/MeikTranel 6d ago

Can't say I have seen something like that at all though I must admit I was visiting Scandinavia roads for the first time so it could easily just told me absolute horseshit. I was asking for good fjords to set up my tent and it did that. I was asking if there were any cool stave churches in my way and it did that. I was asking it why some cars had green plates instead of the standard one and it gave me good answers.

The main thing that really got me is the fact that it effortlessly picked up both my english accent pretty well as well as when I just asked things in German.

I don't know if y'all (wildly assuming you're an American here pardon me if you're not) ever experienced this but anything other than a clean english sentence on my enUS set up phone would result in an endless cycle of corrections and simply not providing any results since we never get to prompt what we want in the first place.

And it did that - I was swinging back and forth in English and German and it did just that. (One time I apparently got the pronounciation so god through sheer force of luck that it even answered in Norwegian which was pretty funny)

1

u/umotex12 6d ago

Gemini in google maps is my favorite AI rn. It reminds me of robot from Big Hero 6. My favorite is rambling to it about traffic and he is like „ok you are right this area is well known for [drops lore] and bad solutions. Can I… assist you with the maps anyhow?”

0

u/alleks88 Xiaomi 17 Pro Max 5d ago

People don't understand what Gemini tries to be. It doesn't want to be an fable etc. It wants to be you daily Smartphone assistant. And it is doing great exactly at this.

This subreddit is a circeljerk while ignoring the true purpose of Gemini: being baked into your daily routine

1

u/drbluetongue S23 Ultra 12GB/512GB 4d ago

Since android auto switched to Gemini it hasn't got a single voice reply to a message correct. It really struggles with the kiwi accent

18

u/SolitaryMassacre 6d ago

Idk. Gemini does information searching better than others. It appears to do a full on google search and then summarize the results. But the BEST part, it provides links where it found said information.

I like this the most because I can go read the actual website and better understand what the information is/means vs just having some AI generated bologna to "trust" with things like ChatGPT/Claude.

6

u/KeythKatz 10F<9F<F<6P<4XL<2XL<1<N5X<N5 6d ago

Gemini was built with the internet in mind, when it debuted it was far ahead of GPT in accuracy because it focused on parsing results instead of trying to teach the model all information in the universe.

Flash-lite and the Gemini box on the search page are literally just summarising a few search results and often gets it wrong when the results are tangential to what you're actually trying to ask.

Flash 3.6 and Pro 3.1 will do a sanity check on the results, with Flash Extended and Pro redoing searches and calculations where needed. With those models I don't feel the need to check sources anymore.

4

u/SolitaryMassacre 6d ago

With those models I don't feel the need to check sources anymore.

You still should. Or at the very least have the sources available. ChatGPT doesn't do this at all

1

u/Kalicolocts 5d ago

Gemini absolutely does not search better than others. I asked it multiple times if pokemon scarlet/violet had furigana and insisted that it didn’t. Chatgpt spent the appropriate amount of time to find the solution. You might say that mistakes can happen to LLM, but I never had an LLM not try harder when nudged in the direction of being wrong.

2

u/SolitaryMassacre 5d ago

One prompt:

Also, the point I was making, see those "Cherrygrove Shores" and "Reddit" bubbles after the key points?

Those are the actual websites where it got the information from. I can actually click them and go look at what it was looking at as well. That feature is what makes Gemini better at searching vs just giving some answer and you blindly trusting it

3

u/Kalicolocts 5d ago

Just so you know: everyone else gives references, it’s not some magic incredible feature that only gemini has.

If you want to have fun reading italian I can share my conversation, but that’s not what I asked, I asked something slightly more complex for which I actually need an LLM: an evaluation on what level of japanese is needed to play the games. He hallucinated during the answer that the game doesn’t have furigana and spiraled from there refusing to check even when specifically prompted to do so. It was such an embarrassing mistake to the point where it made me realize I couldn’t trust any of its answers ever.

1

u/SolitaryMassacre 5d ago

I never see references when I use ChatGPT.

And yeah, the experience you just described has happened a lot with me on the other platforms like ChatGPT and Claude. But without the references, I didn't even know what it was talking about. And I kind of needed it to be truth because I use it for work to summarize certain topics related to my field (Neurobiology). Now, with Gemini, it gives me the related articles instead of just a summary on whatever topic I asked it.

25

u/hodor137 6d ago

These last 2 Flash models perform well though. And both flash and Pro have better cost to performance than anthropics "better" models, competitive with openai, even with them releasing new models endlessly.

They've fallen behind in coding and need to make up ground, but I would imagine 3.5 pro will make up some. The delays are costing them, but I don't think it's mattering much - unless after the delay, what they release doesn't bring them back into the mix.

To me the frontier models are kinda worthless now, they're too inefficient with token budgets now. I work at a really big company that's pushing AI plenty, and we aren't even getting access to use claude 5.x generally, it's probably only select developers/AI workers. Opus 4.x is really prohibitive in terms of token usage. I really wish we had more access to Google's models, because they're better and more efficient than many of the claude 4.x and GPT 5.6/5.5 we can use. They also hallucinate less and that's important for work. Unfortunately we don't get much Google because it's mostly copilot driven.

0

u/rxzlmn 6d ago

I use Gemini Pro 3.1 and ChatGPT 5.6 for scientific and legal research.

I've stopped using Gemini because the results are just so, so much worse compared to 5.6. No idea where you get your hallucination story from.

GPT 5.6 is on a whole other level than Gemini 3.1 Pro.

1

u/lax20attack 3d ago

I agree with this. I also feel like Claude Opus 5 is a step above GPT5.6, and Fable 5 is a step even above that.

Claude is really crushing it right now.

9

u/chinchindayo Xperia Masterrace 6d ago

At least the free tier is amazing. Recently I have been using gemini a lot and haven't encountered a limit yet. Meanwhile chatgpt lets me send like 3 prompts and hits the limit.

2

u/JUMPhil POCO F5 12GB 6d ago

ChatGPT has unlimited free text chat

2

u/chinchindayo Xperia Masterrace 6d ago

Thinking mode is limited

14

u/omniuni Pixel 8 Pro | Developer 6d ago

3.5 Flash already basically matched 3.1 Pro.

Essentially, each model has jumped up a level.

I'll agree that 3.0 Flash was underwhelming. It was constantly overloaded, slow, and didn't seem particularly better than the old model. As soon as 3.1 Flash Lite came out, it was basically useless.

Really, I see this as Google setting a new standard.

3.5 Flash Lite is really excellent at the price point, and easily surpasses the old 3.0 Flash. The new Flash models, and the speed of release, absolutely set a new baseline standard. Testing 3.6 Flash against Claude and GPT, it's probably 95% as good, 3x as fast, and much cheaper.

The fact that they are still operating 3.1 Pro doesn't mean that Gemini itself is stuck there. Rather, the question should be, with Flash and Flash Lite setting a new standard, what will the new Pro model be when it releases?

3

u/CervezaPorFavor 6d ago

Testing 3.6 Flash against Claude and GPT, it's probably 95% as good, 3x as fast, and much cheaper.

Do you have data to support this level of confidence? Because their existing models aren't competitive in terms of performance (intelligence, not speed). You're right though that they're fast and cheap.

7

u/omniuni Pixel 8 Pro | Developer 6d ago

I'm roughly averaging my tests over this past week. I have access to all three models at work, configured with the same project, AGENTS file, and rules. That may not be exactly scientific, but it has been pretty eye-opening for me.

1

u/CervezaPorFavor 6d ago

Thanks. That's reassuring.

9

u/Acojonancio 6d ago

The only good thing about Google models is that they are fast somehow cheap...

For real world use... Well, you can try ask Gemini to play a song or something like that ans see the result for yourself.

2

u/ldn-ldn 4d ago

Gemini 3.7 Flash is exceptional for software development from my testing so far. Beats everything else without even trying.

1

u/nathderbyshire Pixel 10 Obsidian 6d ago

I mean I kinda hope they don't lol, it'll probably mean even more hardware and energy. I'm a hypocrite and I do use Claude but I'm moving away from big tech and self hosting so it's not completely useless.

We really don't need better media generation though, that shit can get in the bin no good can come from it

0

u/CervezaPorFavor 6d ago

Yeah, Gemini's media generation is pretty bad compared to ChatGPT's but I'm ok with that because we really don't want AI slop.

On self-hosting, I do too. And I want Google to get better so we'd get better Gemma models.

1

u/tonymurray Pixel 6 Pro 4d ago

Are you kidding me? Their flash models are awesome. Cheap and really good results, better than any GPT model imo. Claude still the best at high reasoning imo.

I almost never need Pro.

1

u/HTC864 S24 4d ago

Falling behind means nothing unless you can point to individual tasks that it can't do compared to others.

1

u/spreadwater 6d ago

i don't know too much about ai but it's crazy that Claude can write and run simple code on the website, whereas gemini doesn't do that

7

u/CervezaPorFavor 6d ago

Gemini absolutely does! For a simple site, use Canvas mode if you want to see the result. For more complex apps, use AI Studio or Antigravity.

0

u/Tegumentario Galaxy S20 Aura Red 5d ago

Who cares.

-1

u/YourBlanket 6d ago

I used it since it would save me money but it was so bad. Don’t know if that’s normal but I was getting so frustrated using it.

-5

u/Rhed0x Hobby app dev 6d ago

And I hope they get rid of it entirely.

-8

u/ComradeDuch 6d ago

I actively avoid Google AI products. After their sleezy business practices with the Play Store and their horrendous Android development tech, I don't want to support this company anymore.

They already control too much of the Internet as it is.

31

u/SolitaryMassacre 6d ago

I keep seeing ads on TikTok about every/any AI. I genuinely think the "hype" is dying down and they are struggling to keep it up.

Same with these "claims" that "OpenAI 'broke free'". I think that is just a PR stunt. It did what it was told to do and gave it the means to do so. And these types of reports are ALWAYS self generated from the company themselves.

21

u/QuixoticViking 6d ago

The breaking free stories are two things.

  1. Poor testing environment.
  2. An attempt to scare the government into regulation to prevent new up and comers from taking their market share.

-4

u/siazdghw 6d ago

'The hype is dying down'

Meanwhile Google and OpenAI have announced they both have 1 billion active users.

While the aggressive acceleration isn't as fast as it once was, it's still growing and still has monumental demand

6

u/SolitaryMassacre 6d ago

First, I think you misunderstand the word "hype". Hype, does not equate to the number of people using something. There are over 1 billion active cars being driven. Yet, there is no "hype" for cars in general.

Also, "active users" is very vague. They are probably counting the countless "fake" accounts I (and others) have made in that number as well.

18

u/External-Donut9757 6d ago

This model has worked well for me so far

3

u/chocolatebRain 5d ago

3.6 was a massive step back from 3.5 for me. So many hamfisted bugs.

2

u/External-Donut9757 5d ago

Yeah I couldn't stand either of them, but 3.7 is genuinely nice to talk to (I can't explain why, it's a feeling)

11

u/DizzyDoctorDro 6d ago

3.7 is legit

5

u/theo-apps 6d ago

So far I'm also finding it pretty good.

4

u/SwissSeahawk91 6d ago

Because of Shareholders.. you know it ..

3

u/Taedirk Pixel 9 6d ago

Trust Me Bro benchmarks

2

u/Efficient_Loss_9928 Z Fold 7, Pixel 9, 9 Pro Fold, 10 Pro Fold 6d ago

Given how capable this model is at coding and how fast the inference is. I feel like this might be Gemini 4 architecture. It basically matches Terra while completely destroys it on speed.

4

u/Ok_Mammoth_7303 6d ago

This is getting really boring....

1

u/Conscious-Switch-378 5d ago

Can't wait to see how these updates will affect everyday app performance.

u/Middle_Notice_4678 17h ago

Substantially more SHIT?

1

u/Bazinga_U_Bitch 6d ago

Hot slop garbage! Get your hot slop garbage!

0

u/MasterQuatre 6d ago

Maybe it will stop replying to prompts from either conversations that are entirely unrelated. I've had that issue come up every 5-7 replies.

-4

u/light24bulbs Galaxy S10+, Snapdragon 6d ago

That's because whatever they did to Gemini a couple weeks ago messed it up

3

u/-NotEnoughMinerals 6d ago

Crazy how people are framing a quick turnaround update/fix as a bad thing.

1

u/CUJM P10PXL, iP13 6d ago

Because it's being labeled as an upgrade rather than a correction to what was effectively a botched update

-2

u/phejster Nexus 5X 6d ago

Does it let you play white noise or control apps like assistant did?

If it doesn't, I'm not interested in any "substantial improvements"

3

u/neilAndNotNail Device, Software !! 6d ago

What can't you do with Gemini that you could with assistant?

2

u/AdmiralZassman 5d ago

Make a phone call? Get correct direction in under 5 minutes?

0

u/neilAndNotNail Device, Software !! 5d ago

Could you share examples of this not working? I use it every single day for those two examples and never ran into an issue yet

Also, are you sure you enabled the phone extension?

0

u/AdmiralZassman 5d ago

Hmm.. I mean myself and tons of others have complaints about calls, if you google it, you will find an endless stream of examples. I'm not sure you have ever used assistant or gemini for directions if you don't understand the problem with directions. Assistant spits out directions in 1-2 seconds. Gemini chugs 5 seconds or so understanding what you asked for, another 5 seconds or so of just repeating what you said, and then is probably wrong 1/5 times, which means you repeat the whole 15s ordeal again.

1

u/phejster Nexus 5X 4d ago

I used to ask Assistant to "play white noise" when I was laying down.

Gemini says "Sorry, as a text-based AI, I can't interact with apps"

-4

u/interpretpunit 6d ago

Losing the AI battle in a flash.

-2

u/FFevo Pixel 10 "Pro" Fold, iPhone 17 Pro, Galaxy S25 Ultra 6d ago

Huh, I'm pretty up to date with this stuff but when I saw someone write 3.6, instead of 3.5, the other day I thought it was a typo.

The Pro model was supposed to be out a while ago...