Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

You can now pre-order the NotebookLM app on the App Store

Google NotebookLM app shots.
Google

A listing for Google’s NotebookLM app has appeared on the App Store with an expected launch date of May 20, meaning the popular research assistant will go portable this month. May 20 is the first day of I/O 2025, so we’re expecting the app to be unveiled and launched during one of the conference’s events or keynotes.

As a research assistant designed to help students and researchers interact with large numbers of sources, it’s not surprising that NotebookLM is mostly used on desktops. However, that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be convenient to access your notebooks or ask a quick question on mobile — which is exactly why we’re getting a NotebookLM app.

Recommended Videos

Not to mention, the app will also make it much easier to listen to your Audio Overview podcasts on the go. Judging by the app description on the App Store, this is one of the main selling points of the app:

Listen to your favorite Audio Overviews on the go with the Google NotebookLM app, the official companion app to notebooklm.google.com.

The app allows you to:

• View the notebooks you have created on notebooklm.google.com

• View the sources you have uploaded in each of the notebooks

• Listen to the Audio Overviews you have generated on notebooklm.google.com

This isn’t surprising, since the AI podcast feature has been highlighted by Google numerous times as being one of the most popular features on the platform.

As well as mobile, the app will also be available on iPad and tablets, which should make it easier to use and multitask with compared to using it in-browser. Another neat feature of the app is the ability to send sources from anywhere on your device to the app through the normal Share menu.

If you haven’t tried NotebookLM before, there is a free tier available and the new app should make it easier to casually test it out without going to your PC and making a whole thing of it. You might not be the research paper-reading type usually, but it’s a whole different story when you can upload the paper and generate a summary of it in the form of a conversational podcast.

Google recently expanded the languages available too, so you can also consume content that isn’t available in your language or generate podcasts in a language you’re studying for listening practice.

NotebookLM and its app will almost certainly be covered at I/O 2025, so keep an eye out for that if you’re interested in learning more about it. For now, you can “pre-order” the app on the App Store or “pre-register” for it on the Google Play Store.

Willow Roberts
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Willow Roberts has been a Computing Writer at Digital Trends for a year and has been writing for about a decade. She has a…
You can now send higher-quality photos in RCS Google Messages chats. Here’s how
Google Messages app on a Pixel 8 Pro, showing an RCS Chat message thread.

Google Messages is one of the most popular messaging platforms on the planet — so popular, in fact, that companies like Samsung and Verizon are doing away with their in-house messaging apps in favor of it. More than 1 billion users engage with Google Messages monthly, and a large part of the experience is RCS. We've been eagerly looking forward to the introduction of quality control when sending photos, a feature first spotted earlier this month.

Now, Google Messages has begun rolling out the "original quality" media-sharing feature, as noted by Android Authority. For now, it's only available in the beta, but that's a firm sign that all users will be receiving it shortly.

Read more
AI may soon make it easier to find the right Android app
Samsung Galaxy S24 in Marble Gray showing the Play Store.

Google may be planning to use its AI smarts to make it easier and faster to discover and learn more about apps in the Google Play Store. The first hints about a so-called Ask a Question feature have appeared inside the code of the Play Store app, and while details are thin at the moment, they do match Google’s AI efforts in its other apps.

The code discovered indicates the search and individual app pages in the Play Store may get a search bar powered by AI that will possibly display text saying “Ask a question about this app,” according to a report published by Android Authority that focused on a version of the Play Store app was torn down and examined. Code inside apps can often reveal features being tested internally before any public release.

Read more
You can now try one of the best new Google Photos features in years
Pixel 9 Pro in Rose Quartz showing Google Photos.

If you have a lot of photos, you know that searching through them can be a bit of a daunting task. Thankfully, if you use Google Photos, searching your photo library is now easier than ever thanks to some search improvements and Ask Photos with Gemini. Both of these features are rolling out today, though the Ask Photos feature is only available to select users through Google Labs.

What exactly is Ask Photos? It goes a step beyond the standard search experience in Google Photos by using the most recent Gemini models to understand your photo gallery. This means the most important people in your life, your hobbies, favorite foods, and more. With this data, Ask Photos can pull out relevant details in your photos to help you find those specific memories that you’re looking for, as well as help uncover information about your life as a whole.

Read more