I had to run an errand, so I tested driving and talking hands-free to Meta’s Muse. After the fact I figured out how to do the same with Google’s Gemini.
But that wasn’t what I originally wanted to test. I originally only wanted to know where I was and what the weather was. Silly, but possibly practical.
Sending iMessages With Muse
Over the last couple of days, I have been working on a second Muse routine. (I described the first one here.) The purpose of this new routine (as of the most recent edit) is to compose an iMessage with my location (street address) and the current weather, then press a button to send the iMessage to the intended recipient: myself.
I needed to grant Muse permission to access my iMessage contacts, and rather than opening the permission to EVERY contact, I only granted permission to the contact information for “jebredcal,” which has its own Google Voice phone number different from my iPhone’s number. Eventually I may expand the permissions to allow Muse to send iMessages to other contacts…or I may not.
I had tested the routine before, but only at home. Since I had to run an errand, I decided to drive to my location and run the routine from there. It worked, and I was able to press the button and send the iMessage with my street address and the current weather (62 degrees Fahrenheit and cloudy).
A silly routine, but it has advantages over other phone capabilities that ALWAYS share your location with certain parties. With this routine, I only share my information when I want to, or when it’s necessary. For example, if I want to let a business associate know that I have arrived at Dallas Fort Worth Airport, I just execute the routine (assuming I’ve given Muse permission to messsage that individual).
Here’s the (vibe) code
Here’s my current version of the routine, by the way, entirely coded by Muse based upon my voice prompts. (I’ve gotten a little better at vibe coding, I guess.)
“iMessage location jebredcal v2611b (saved by John on 2026-11-12 as v2611a; modified to v2611b on 2026-11-13 to add the weather)
“When John asks to run it, read his phone’s live location, reverse-geocode it to the address only (no coordinates), include the location/place name if one is known, check the current weather at that location, and prepare an iMessage draft to JEBredCal (contact, phone (909) 906-0176) with the body “I am at and the weather is” (appending the location name if known). The draft is presented for John to send via Messages; it does not send automatically. It is not scheduled — it runs only when John calls it by name.”
Yes, the publicly-published Bredemarket phone number is a Google Voice number. Now you know.
Unlike Google Gemini skills, the Muse routine is easily human-readable. And when I want to modify it to text people other than myself, I just describe what I want to do, Muse implements it, and I test it.
So anyway, I arrived at my destination, sent the location text to myself, and completed my errand. That’s when I noticed that my phone was attached to my car speaker (regular Bluetooth, no CarPlay).
So I thought I’d try something else on the way home.
Road-testing Google Gemini…and failing
First, I opened Google Gemini on my phone, pressed the microphone at the bottom, and attempted to carry on a conversation.
It didn’t work. I’ll tell you why later. (Spoiler: user error.)
Driving and talking hands-free to Muse
I already knew how to talk to Muse, which helped immensely. From the Muse iOS app, I simply pressed the phone handset icon in the upper right corner, and Muse (with its set female Australian accent) and I started chatting away.
After I rechecked the weather and Muse praised me for interacting hands-free while driving, I eventually asked Muse how to get to my house.
However, by the time I asked Muse this, I was already 3/4 mile south of the place where I ran my errand…and Muse didn’t know it. I had to tell Muse that she had the wrong starting point, which Muse quickly corrected.
Sadly, there is a bit of a lag in Muse’s directions. This makes it inferior to the voice directions given by Google Maps. But navigation was somewhat workable.
The next step is to give Muse permission to access the Bredemarket calendar to read calendar events to me. Again silly, especially since I don’t drive that much since I work from home. But there’s always a possible application.
Sitting and talking hands-free to Gemini
After Muse got me safely home, I decided to investigate why I couldn’t do the same with Google Gemini.
Turns out I was pressing the wrong button. Instead of pressing the microphone at the bottom right, I needed to press the three vertical lines at the lower right to go live with Gemini. Once I did that, I was able to carry on a hands-free conversation with no problem. (Gemini also uses an Australian female voice. It’s a thing.)
And Gemini (which I access from the Bredemarket account) IS connected to my calendar already, so I was able to check my calendar entries. However, Gemini is unable to state my precise location like Muse does; it only returned my city. So naturally Gemini can’t provide driving directions, but of course I can use Google Maps for that. It can also link to my emails, play music (once I give Gemini permission to access Spotify; however, this isn’t supported live on iOS), and brainstorn ideas.
So what’s next?
I’ll continue to experiment with both my Australian women, the Google one and the Meta one. Then I’ll see which bot provides which functionality.
