Summary
It’s no secret that I love Claude and prefer it to ChatGPT and Gemini! I also reach out to the Claude Android app more often than to Gemini for many tasks. So, you can imagine my excitement when I heard that Claude can now work with Android apps. In a support page published on August 25, the company explained how Claude can access multiple apps/features on an Android smartphone. Surely, I wanted to check out the feature and believed Claude might as well replace Gemini on my device. Last week, I updated Claude for Android to the latest version and decided to test its Android capabilities against Gemini’s. What Claude claims it can control on Android It’s a rather extensive list Before I tell you what worked and what didn’t, we must understand what Anthropic claims Claude can do. According to Anthropic, Claude can help you with the following:
- Drafting and sending messages using default messaging apps and third-party ones like WhatsApp and Slack
- Composing emails so that the email app will open with the drafted content prefilled
- Set alarms and timers using the corresponding apps on Android
- Display locations on maps and show navigation options
- Access current location and offer contextual suggestions I was pretty excited to see this new functionality. For what it’s worth, Anthropic does mention a few limitations, such as the feature not being able to access contacts, reminders, or calendar events owned by others. It also mentions how some features are limited to certain subscription plans and geographical locations. The alarm and timer requests never failed Spoiler: they don’t need Gemini’s help There are two actions that Claude could easily perform on my Android smartphone: setting a timer and setting an alarm. The idea is simple: you want to do something within a time, and you ask Claude to set a timer for, let’s say, 2 minutes. Within a second, Claude started the timer, and I could see it running in the default Clock app on my smartphone. There was also a See Timers button, but it led me straight to the Clock app, not a Claude page. Similarly, you can set an alarm. You’d say something like, “Set an alarm for 11:30 am,” and Claude does the job. This is an area where you see the benefit of AI: if you say a time that could mean two different things, Claude will ask you for clarification. One evening, I asked Claude to set an alarm for 11:00, and the AI chatbot asked me whether I meant 11 am or a few hours after. These options worked well and are pretty well integrated with Android. Calendar management is the pleasant surprise Potential conflicts aside, it just scheduled things Calendar management is one of those areas where Claude for Android makes life easier and efficiently manages your smartphone calendar. As someone who manages multiple calendars on my device, I find it useful to view and manage events from a chatbot I regularly use. Claude seems to deliver on this front. Note: It’s slightly different if you have set up a Google Calendar connection. When you ask for a calendar management system, Claude will resort to that option. To access your device calendar, turn off the Google Calendar connector, so Claude can access it instead. When you set up calendar access for the first time, you can choose which calendars Claude can access. This is a great option because the Google Calendar connector only allows you to connect one account, but I have multiple accounts on my device. This feature has been pretty useful. Once the setup is done, you can ask Claude to show you what’s ahead for you next week or to add a new event. Once again, Claude’s smart chatbot can understand when you say something confusing and will give you a couple of options to choose from. Generally, using Claude to manage my calendar has been a pleasant experience, as long as we avoid ownership and other conflicts. Some features that never quite worked These sections need serious work before they’re advertised Messaging, maps, and location-based suggestions are a few other things that Anthropic claims Claude can do on Android, but these were better when promised than delivered. Compared to the other options I tested, the features built into Claude for messaging people or getting location-based suggestions were either broken or seemed to need a mediator. Messaging options heavily relied on web-based connectors Though Anthropic claims that Claude for Android can send text messages along with WhatsApp and Slack messages, this did not seem to work. Even when I specifically asked Claude to send a message to a given number, it explicitly told me that it cannot send WhatsApp or text messages, but instead opened a link where it loaded WhatsApp. When I asked Claude to send a message via Slack, it opened the web-based connector I had set up earlier. When I turned off this connector and tried again, Claude asked me to turn it on. Sure, this technically means that Claude can send a message on Slack, but it doesn’t do anything specific on an Android smartphone. Instead, it uses a generic connector available on all devices. When it came to maps and location-based suggestions, Claude did deliver, but it almost felt like the app was simply pulling in content from Google Maps and synthesizing it at a very surface level. Email and maps-based actions don’t work as advertised, either The situation was somewhat similar when I asked Claude to send an email as well. It immediately resorted to the connected Gmail account and asked if it could do it for me. When I turned off the connector, the option did not exist, and it said it could offer me an “Open in Mail” button, which is half-baked, to say the least. When it came to maps and location-based suggestions, Claude did deliver, but it almost felt like the app was simply pulling in content from Google Maps and synthesizing it at a very surface level. It did not offer the seamless experience I got when I was asking it to check my calendar or set a timer. Similarly, it says it can help you navigate to a location, but it could not start turn-by-turn navigation at all. Not a Gemini replacement, at least not yet For all I love what Claude has built for Android, it is not yet a Gemini replacement. As you can clearly see, there are sections that need a revamp and better permissions to offer an experience that matches Gemini’s. Given that Anthropic has optimized certain features, such as timers, calendars, and alarms, for a smoother experience, I’m sure there’ll be better options. Until then, though, I will stick to Gemini for most of my AI assistance needs and give Claude a try sometime later!