Google Says A ‘NotebookLM App Is Coming Soon’

Since launch, NotebookLM has just been a website, but Google now says an “app” is coming soon.

The NotebookLM interface, especially with the three pane redesign introduced late last year, is best suited for the web, especially if you’re constantly using all its capabilities. 

That being said, the UI is resizable and you can use everything on a phone-sized screen with three top tabs. Additionally, you can save notebooklm.google.com as a Progressive Web App (PWA) that gives you an app icon on your homescreen. Browser elements, like the address bar are hidden, for a fullscreen experience that’s app-like.

• Android: Tap Chrome’s three-dot menu in the top-right corner > Add to Home screen
• iOS: Tap Safari’s share menu > Add to Home Screen

(The PWA could benefit from some tweaks today, like how you can’t access settings on the homepage since the gear overlaps with the app switcher, while the status bar remains light even if you use a dark theme.)

In a quote repost today, @NotebookLM says “the NotebookLM app is coming soon!” This is presumably referring to a native mobile app on Android and iOS. (A desktop application would be out of the ordinary for Google, which only has a handful of native clients on Mac, Windows, and Linux.)

The biggest advantage of a mobile app would be discovery in Google Play on Android and the iOS App Store. It would be interesting to see how native the experience would be, or if it’s just a wrapper, thus allowing Google to quickly continue web development. 

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