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Google suffers from Microsoft's issues: it has products for almost everything, but its confusing product messaging dilutes all the good things it does. I like

Google suffers from Microsoft's issues: it has products for almost everything, but its confusing product messaging dilutes all the good things it does. I like Gemini 2.5 Pro, too, and recently, I tried different AI products (including the Gemini Pro plan) because I wanted a good AI chat assistant for everyday use. But I also wanted to reduce my spending and have fewer subscriptions. The Gemini Pro subscription is included with Google One, which is very convenient if you use Google Drive. But I already have an iCloud subscription tightly integrated with iOS, so switching to Drive and losing access to other iCloud functionality (like passwords) wasn’t in my plans. Then there is the Gemini chat UI, which is light years behind the OpenAI ChatGPT client for macOS. NotebookLM is good at summarizing documents, but the experience isn’t integrated with the Gemini chat, so it’s like constantly switching between Google products without a good integrated experience. The result is that I end up paying a subscription to Raycast AI because the chat app is very well integrated with other Raycast functions, and I can try out models. I don’t get the latest model immediately, but it has an integrated experience with my workflow. My point in this long description is that by being spread across many products, Google is losing on the UX side compared to OpenAI (for general tasks) or Anthropic (for coding). In just a few months, Google tried to catch up with v0 (Google Stitch), GH Copilot/Cursor (with that half-baked VSCode plugin), and now Claude Code. But all the attempts look like side-projects that will be killed soon.

Fluorescence 1y ago
> The Gemini Pro subscription is included with Google One It's not in Basic, Standard or Premium. It's in a new tier called "Google AI Pro" which I think is worth inclusion in your catalogue of product confusion. Oh wait, there's even more tiers that for some reason can't be paid for annually. Weird... why not? "Google AI Ultra" and some others just called Premium again but now include AI. 9 tiers, 5 called Premium, 2 with AI in the name but 6 that include Gemini. What a mess.
- scoopdewoop 1y ago
  It is bold to assume these products will even exist in a year
  - rvnx 1y ago
    This is also tied to the internal promotion system within Google; you get promoted and rewarded for launching new products. Way less for maintenance.
    - sometimes_all 1y ago
      Yes this is a well-known trope in HN about promotion-oriented launches, but this is just pure lack of proper messaging. I had a chat with one of Google's representatives, and they keep on saying "they do not have any information on this as of now". This is less about internal systems and more about either incompetence or active sabotage.
- vexna 1y ago
  It gets even more confusing! If you're on the "Premium" plans (i.e the the old standard "Google One" plans) and upgrade to >=5TB storage, your "Premium" plan starts including all the features of "Google AI Pro". Tip: If you do annual billing for "Premium (5 TB)", you end up paying $21/month for 5TB of storage and the same AI features of "Google AI pro (2TB)"; which is only $1/month more than doing "Google AI Pro (2 TB)" (which only has monthly billing)
  - croon 1y ago
    In my region Premium is actually $0.60 cheaper per month, with the additional 3TB storage, and that's before yearly billing. Confusing indeed.
- sofixa 1y ago
  > It's not in Basic, Standard or Premium. For me, it shows all the Gemini stuff in Premium, even the 5TB version.
  - Fluorescence 1y ago
    It's interesting to see the most recent internet archive snapshot from last week. Just 4 tiers. Basic, Standard, Premium which don't include Gemini. There is a fourth tier called "AI Premium" that does. https://web.archive.org/web/20250611035305/https://one.google.com/about/plans https://web.archive.org/web/20250611035305/https://one.googl... I wonder what it will be next week.
krferriter 1y ago
I subscribed to Google One through the Google Photos iOS app because I wanted photos I took on my iPhone to be backed up to Google. When I switched to Android and went into Google One to increase my storage capacity in my Google account, I found that it was literally impossible, because the subscription was tied to my iCloud account. I even got on a line with Google Support about it and they told me yeah it's not even possible on their side to disconnect my Google One subscription from Apple. I had to wait for the iCloud subscription to Google One to end, and then I was able to go into Google One and increase my storage capacity.
- bilalq 1y ago
  The root problem here lies with Apple. It's so frustrating how they take a 30% cut for the privilege of being unable to actually have a relationship with your customers. Want to do a partial refund (or a refund at all)? Want to give one month free to an existing subscriber? Tough luck. Your users are Apple's customers, not yours.
  - kridsdale3 1y ago
    I implemented Google One integration in an iOS app. This comment chain is accurate. Users want to pay with Apple (like other app subscriptions) but then your “account” is inside their payments world. Which is super confusing since users (rightly) think they are dealing with their Google account.
    - zo1 1y ago
      Sounds like the analysts and product owners didn't really want to solve this problem. Instead they ticked the boxes, got the bonuses, and the devs never questioned it and just implemented it for fear of being PIPed. I'm sure there is technically nothing that stopped you from treating this "Pay with Apple" thing as just another payment method inside the google account, except maybe additional complexity and red-tape. Seen this many times when PMs, POs, and Devs code by features instead of trying to actually solve something. I don't even want to know what mess of a database schema is behind this monstrosity.
pjmlp 1y ago
It is quite interesting how many big corporations eventually grow up to the same mess.
Yizahi 1y ago
I had no idea I had a Gemini Pro sub included in One sub all this time. Thanks for the tip :) Google is really bad at effective advertising.
Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
There is a vscode extension that can basically be an agent but use gemini from the website which is cool. But I found it to a little bit clunky and I guess I like the ui of google, I mean, the point is to get the point across. If you really hate the gemini ui, I am pretty sure that there is stylus extension which can beautify it or change the styles to your looking. I guess I am an android user but still I understand your icloud subscription but if you're only choice as to why to not switch to google is passwords (but maybe you can mention more?), then for passwords, please try bitwarden, I found it to be really delightful.
- diegof79 1y ago
  The main reason not to migrate is that they cost the same, but I get more value from iCloud. You can probably say the same for Google One on Android; ecosystem retention seems to work well for Apple and Google. I used 1Password in the past, and it’s possible to reconfigure most things to use another provider (passwords, app storage, etc.). AFAIK, you cannot reconfigure the full phone backup, which you must manually do without an iCloud storage quota. But why switch providers if I’m on the Apple ecosystem and the service is priced at the same price tiers? (I also use “Hide My Email” occasionally) The only difference will be Gemini. However, my most significant percentage of AI usage is currently on desktops. The free tier of ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude is okay for use on mobile. The UI part that I mentioned is this: Gemini is just a web app, which means that if you need to use AI from the selected text or the app you are using, you need to copy and paste or capture a screenshot. But ChatGPT macOS integration is much better. It’s a native app that you can summon with a key combination, and it can automatically put the active app/text in context. I evaluated multiple options, and in the end, the winner for me was Raycast AI, because their app UX is incredible, and you can integrate your prompt with existing tools very easily. With prompts like: “For each item in the current selection, add a todo in @Apple Reminders”, or things like “Use @firecrawl to scrap the current page, then create a table with all the product prices and use @finder to store a CSV file”. You can save the prompt in a preset and use it as a Raycast command. That UX change was like night and day regarding daily AI usage. I chose to pay for the Raycast subscription, even if it was more expensive than switching everything from iCloud to Google and paying for only one service. My point in the parent post is that today, Google is the company most well-positioned to be the absolute leader of the AI space. However, unlike OpenAI, they don’t seem to care much about the UX (at least outside Android), but if you use the assistant to work every day, the difference a good chat UX does is huge.
UrineSqueegee 1y ago
>losing access to other iCloud functionality (like passwords) wasn’t in my plans. you can export and import the passwords and you can sync your photos to google photos

Fluorescence 1y ago

> The Gemini Pro subscription is included with Google One It's not in Basic, Standard or Premium. It's in a new tier called "Google AI Pro" which I think is worth inclusion in your catalogue of product confusion. Oh wait, there's even more tiers that for some reason can't be paid for annually. Weird... why not? "Google AI Ultra" and some others just called Premium again but now include AI. 9 tiers, 5 called Premium, 2 with AI in the name but 6 that include Gemini. What a mess.

scoopdewoop 1y ago
It is bold to assume these products will even exist in a year
- rvnx 1y ago
  This is also tied to the internal promotion system within Google; you get promoted and rewarded for launching new products. Way less for maintenance.
  - sometimes_all 1y ago
    Yes this is a well-known trope in HN about promotion-oriented launches, but this is just pure lack of proper messaging. I had a chat with one of Google's representatives, and they keep on saying "they do not have any information on this as of now". This is less about internal systems and more about either incompetence or active sabotage.
vexna 1y ago
It gets even more confusing! If you're on the "Premium" plans (i.e the the old standard "Google One" plans) and upgrade to >=5TB storage, your "Premium" plan starts including all the features of "Google AI Pro". Tip: If you do annual billing for "Premium (5 TB)", you end up paying $21/month for 5TB of storage and the same AI features of "Google AI pro (2TB)"; which is only $1/month more than doing "Google AI Pro (2 TB)" (which only has monthly billing)
- croon 1y ago
  In my region Premium is actually $0.60 cheaper per month, with the additional 3TB storage, and that's before yearly billing. Confusing indeed.
sofixa 1y ago
> It's not in Basic, Standard or Premium. For me, it shows all the Gemini stuff in Premium, even the 5TB version.
- Fluorescence 1y ago
  It's interesting to see the most recent internet archive snapshot from last week. Just 4 tiers. Basic, Standard, Premium which don't include Gemini. There is a fourth tier called "AI Premium" that does. https://web.archive.org/web/20250611035305/https://one.google.com/about/plans https://web.archive.org/web/20250611035305/https://one.googl... I wonder what it will be next week.

krferriter 1y ago

I subscribed to Google One through the Google Photos iOS app because I wanted photos I took on my iPhone to be backed up to Google. When I switched to Android and went into Google One to increase my storage capacity in my Google account, I found that it was literally impossible, because the subscription was tied to my iCloud account. I even got on a line with Google Support about it and they told me yeah it's not even possible on their side to disconnect my Google One subscription from Apple. I had to wait for the iCloud subscription to Google One to end, and then I was able to go into Google One and increase my storage capacity.

bilalq 1y ago
The root problem here lies with Apple. It's so frustrating how they take a 30% cut for the privilege of being unable to actually have a relationship with your customers. Want to do a partial refund (or a refund at all)? Want to give one month free to an existing subscriber? Tough luck. Your users are Apple's customers, not yours.
- kridsdale3 1y ago
  I implemented Google One integration in an iOS app. This comment chain is accurate. Users want to pay with Apple (like other app subscriptions) but then your “account” is inside their payments world. Which is super confusing since users (rightly) think they are dealing with their Google account.
  - zo1 1y ago
    Sounds like the analysts and product owners didn't really want to solve this problem. Instead they ticked the boxes, got the bonuses, and the devs never questioned it and just implemented it for fear of being PIPed. I'm sure there is technically nothing that stopped you from treating this "Pay with Apple" thing as just another payment method inside the google account, except maybe additional complexity and red-tape. Seen this many times when PMs, POs, and Devs code by features instead of trying to actually solve something. I don't even want to know what mess of a database schema is behind this monstrosity.

pjmlp 1y ago

It is quite interesting how many big corporations eventually grow up to the same mess.

Yizahi 1y ago

I had no idea I had a Gemini Pro sub included in One sub all this time. Thanks for the tip :) Google is really bad at effective advertising.

Imustaskforhelp 1y ago

There is a vscode extension that can basically be an agent but use gemini from the website which is cool. But I found it to a little bit clunky and I guess I like the ui of google, I mean, the point is to get the point across. If you really hate the gemini ui, I am pretty sure that there is stylus extension which can beautify it or change the styles to your looking. I guess I am an android user but still I understand your icloud subscription but if you're only choice as to why to not switch to google is passwords (but maybe you can mention more?), then for passwords, please try bitwarden, I found it to be really delightful.

diegof79 1y ago
The main reason not to migrate is that they cost the same, but I get more value from iCloud. You can probably say the same for Google One on Android; ecosystem retention seems to work well for Apple and Google. I used 1Password in the past, and it’s possible to reconfigure most things to use another provider (passwords, app storage, etc.). AFAIK, you cannot reconfigure the full phone backup, which you must manually do without an iCloud storage quota. But why switch providers if I’m on the Apple ecosystem and the service is priced at the same price tiers? (I also use “Hide My Email” occasionally) The only difference will be Gemini. However, my most significant percentage of AI usage is currently on desktops. The free tier of ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude is okay for use on mobile. The UI part that I mentioned is this: Gemini is just a web app, which means that if you need to use AI from the selected text or the app you are using, you need to copy and paste or capture a screenshot. But ChatGPT macOS integration is much better. It’s a native app that you can summon with a key combination, and it can automatically put the active app/text in context. I evaluated multiple options, and in the end, the winner for me was Raycast AI, because their app UX is incredible, and you can integrate your prompt with existing tools very easily. With prompts like: “For each item in the current selection, add a todo in @Apple Reminders”, or things like “Use @firecrawl to scrap the current page, then create a table with all the product prices and use @finder to store a CSV file”. You can save the prompt in a preset and use it as a Raycast command. That UX change was like night and day regarding daily AI usage. I chose to pay for the Raycast subscription, even if it was more expensive than switching everything from iCloud to Google and paying for only one service. My point in the parent post is that today, Google is the company most well-positioned to be the absolute leader of the AI space. However, unlike OpenAI, they don’t seem to care much about the UX (at least outside Android), but if you use the assistant to work every day, the difference a good chat UX does is huge.

UrineSqueegee 1y ago

>losing access to other iCloud functionality (like passwords) wasn’t in my plans. you can export and import the passwords and you can sync your photos to google photos