- An APK teardown of Google’s AICore app shows the expected toggle for activating Gemini Nano features on the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8a.
- Google said Nano would come to these phones through Developer Options, so this suggests that the launch is imminent.
- However, it’s also possible this would allow users to opt out of Nano on the Pixel 8 Pro, too.
There are many versions of Google’s Gemini. Only one of them actually works using the hardware built into smartphones, though, which is Gemini Nano. So far, Nano support only exists on a handful of phones. Notably, this includes just one Pixel: the Google Pixel 8 Pro. When Google confirmed that Nano support wouldn’t come to the Pixel 8, there was a slight uproar — so much so that Google backtracked and agreed to bring Nano support to the Pixel 8 and, even better, the Pixel 8a, too.
The caveat, though, is that Google is going to force users to manually enable Nano support on the Pixel 8 and 8a through a toggle in developer options, while Pixel 8 Pro users already have the features automatically enabled. This means that the vast majority of Pixel 8/8a users won’t use Gemini Nano features because so few of them will know it’s even an option. Now, thanks to an APK teardown of the recent AICore app from Google, we can see the supposed toggle for this feature, suggesting an imminent launch. Interestingly, it might also mean more control of the feature for Pixel 8 Pro users, too.