Google’s new Magic Cue is arguably the biggest software feature on the new Pixel 10 line. This AI-powered feature is deeply integrated into the phone and pulls from a batch of Google services in order to present you information you might need in real-time in a number of ways. So far, it has been really fun and more helpful than I imagined through apps like Google Messages. Not all of the Pixel 10 software experience is good, though. Google has also introduced something called Daily Hub, which to be as kind as I can be, is on a new level of disappointing.
Daily Hub on Pixel 10: Daily Hub is a bit like Samsung’s Now Brief, only worse. I can’t believe I’m actually suggesting that something is more worthless than Samsung’s AI-powered daily planner, but at this stage, Daily Hub just does almost nothing.
The basic idea here is that Google has created a space for you to check each day (multiple times per day) to find the weather forecast, upcoming calendar events, and then also to potentially give you ideas to research or media to consume when you have time to kill. It currently lives as a special button at the top corner of Google Discover, so it’s at least a swipe and then a tap away from opening. At times, you can tap on the At a Glance home widget and it will show it to you as well.
I’ve been testing the Pixel 10 series for more than a week now and I just keep going back to this thing and then leaving with a sad face. Here’s what mine looks like as I type out this story.
As far as my complaints go, we’ll start with the first one, which is the weather. I already know the weather before going into this because it’s on my lock screen and home screen as a part of Google’s At a Glance. I don’t need an AI summary of the weather. Google does this same summary thing in the Weather app on Pixel phones, and it’s just so pointless. We get it, software and AI engineer folk think there has to be an AI spin on everything, but the weather isn’t one of them.
And then the Daily Hub shows some calendar items, which is fine, but again, I may already see them on At a Glance without hitting any button or I may see them from a widget. Like, that information might be helpful in this Hub in the morning and that’s it. But Google does want you to look at this multiple times per day as your day changes.
Finally, because Google doesn’t seem to have any other ideas for Daily Hub, they then just fill it up with junk. There’s a section that could show you music playlists you could continue and then there are YouTube recommendations that you can’t control or dismiss or anything. If it’s crap, it’s just there and only a refresh might get rid of it.
Following that section is just the silliest thing ever. It’s Google presenting some topics to you that it thinks you are into. Tapping on them just launches a Gemini session to help you find out more info. If you are big into researching with AI, then I guess this could be neat. But really, it just looks like junk filler because they weren’t sure what else to do with this.
What could Google do with Daily Hub? Well, a lot! They certainly need to give you more controls over what’s showing up on here, including the sources that provide info. They should probably add shortcuts to things like Google Home routines you frequently use depending on the time of day. I feel like shortcuts to frequently used apps might be helpful too, or at least to some tools like a stopwatch or alarm clock. We need another shortcut to it, even if it’s an app shortcut or widget in case you don’t see the option to jump into it through At a Glance. Making it easier to access would just be more helpful. What about a daily commute? Can it show that info?
If you can’t tell, I’m essentially asking Google to turn this into the Google Now from years ago. That was in the pre-AI days of old that were just wonderful. Google Now was so helpful and I think Google could really pull from that while finding ways to infuse AI here and there.
Why is it so difficult to limit the calendars it reads from? I don't want to see all of my friends' calendar items in my daily hub, but I do want to see them if I'm in my calendar app.
Just give us Google Now back!! That felt like the best phone innovation in years and that was years ago. I still miss it
personally i don't find it to be disappointing, it's outright terrible. one of the most worthless things they've ever released. a list of a couple of calendar entries, yet another place to check weather and a bunch of links to crap it should 100% know i have zero interest in? come on google
It doesn't even get the weather right. I just looked and the Daily Hub said it'll be 74 most of the day. It's 74 now, at almost 10am, and the actual forecast is for the temp to climb into the 80s as the day goes on. The first few youtube video suggestions that I can see are not anything I would ever click on.
This is an embarrassing launch. Almost every feature is not working on my Pixel 10 Pro XL. 100X zoom doesn't work, still limited to 30X (even told me 100X was available when I launched the app), magic cue, ask photos, none of it is working or available for me. GPU is still running at 394mhz…wtf.
You have to go into the camera app settings and download the Pro Res model in order to enable 100x, and even then it’s limited to the 12mp sensor. So if you chose the 50mp sensor on the “Pro” tab then you’ll need to swap back to 12mp for 100x zoom or otherwise be limited to 30x.
There's already a little bit of Google Now back on the Discover feed's top carousel. Google needs to change that from tiny horizontally scrolling tiles to bigger vertically scrolling tab.
I miss the old Google Now feature. Even if they could bring that back from where it was years ago, it would be a big improvement on the pixel experience.
It's terrible as it should be front and center and it's only found on a small box on the Discovery page and it doesn't even provide useful information other than links for one to click on to get more information. It's far worse than Samsung. It doesn't even initiate quickly at least on a P10 Pro as there is lag or pause. Samsung's front and center and is instantaneous though it still needs work in generating more useful information.
So y'all can get Magic Cue to work? I just get a "not available in your country" message. I'm in the US last I checked…
It is pretty useless atm. I don't want Gemini recommendations at all in there and the list of YouTube videos neither. Without that it's just a weather aggregator.
Disappointing
It's Google daily hub will be gone in a year. I thinks it dumb to use