151–160 of 168 posts
Oh, no, Google Deflate has started... I watched the Goggle I/O event for 10 minutes. First, they talked about how they copied Siri. And now they are talking about how they copied Amazon Echo. Unlimited resources. Wasted...
And what do you think they should do?
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Sure, some people are worried. But these devices only listen when they hear the wake word ("Ok Google" or "Alexa"), so there's no real concern about the companies listening to anything other than your queries. And 99% of people are not interesting enough for a state actor to care about. If you are a spy, criminal, politician, etc., then I'd agree you should think twice about owning one.
>these devices only listen when they hear the wake word I can't tell if this is satire.
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I see them aligned in terms of what they are trying to achieve UX-wise, one serves the community that is already building web apps, one serves the community that's already building mobile apps, both get you low-friction, native (or native-like) UX.
I must be missing something; all of this feels very uncoordinated. The primary entry point into Android Instant Apps are normal URLs which get shared over Email, SMS, or Instant Messaging, but for those URLs to ever get shared, they must already exist and work on the current web. So you still have to put in the effort of building a full Web experience. ...and Android can automatically enhance progressive web apps to…
Google, rather than taking a firm stand on which is "right", is providing tools so that developers can take either approach. Google, in this area, is more opinionated on the kind of UX that should be achieved than the route.
Now, you make some good arguments for why Progressive Web Apps might be the better route.
In my humble opinion Google isn't solving new problems anymore. They created great company thanks to solving very important problem: people couldn't find right things on the Internet. Now it is all about ads and reducing number of taps required to order a pizza. The keynote is just boring.
You're confusing them with Apple ;)
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Your phone could be turned to "always listening" for that matter, and it's typically with you 24/7.
You know what I would want my phone to be doing? To be actually always listening. So that I could just say "Ok Google" at random and interact with Google Now without having to unlock the phone or have it constantly hooked up to a charger. That very simple thing would probably quadruple the usefulness of the whole thing. But Google probably has some "smart" reason for never ever allowing that. sigh (I mean, what the h…
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It seems like someone said, "why don't we have a WhatsApp competitor?" and so Bob and Steve made it without thinking about all the different messaging applications already under the Google brand.
Pretty much. Which, on its own, isn't a bad thing. A lot of innovation can happen that way. But see Wave, Talk, Hangouts, Spaces, Allo, G+ [0]: Many communication apps, some mobile, some defunct. They've each added something, they've each lost something. G+ introduced "Circles". I really liked that concept, it was a smooth way to organize the people I wanted to communicate with. Post a message, only my gaming buddies…
"Android Instant Apps" -> aka web hijacker
If I don't have app X installed it can mean I don't know the app. But also it can mean I find it a resource hogging, data gathering piece of turd and that's why I'm using a website.
It seems that choice has gone now.
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I have an Echo. It's great. To me the Amazon play for this is very straightforward: they want you buying Amazon stuff using it. They don't sell ads, they sell products. When they say that the device only listens for its own name locally, I believe it (sans someone hacking it to spy on people of course, but I don't believe that Amazon deliberately programmed it to do this). Google is a different story. I imagine that…
Amazon does sell ads, actually. A quick search would have shown you this[0], and they show up for Kindle users, on www.amazon.com, and elsewhere. It is highly likely Echo will be involved at some point. I think the rest of your post is conjecture, but does this change your opinion? Amazon is a diverse business that wants to sell many things, including your eyeballs (or ears in the case of Echo) to others via advertis…
Second, sure Amazon does ads on the side, but the majority of their money is made by selling their own products. Occam's Razor suggests that they simply want to sell you stuff using one more way. Notice that the Echo didn't do almost anything when it was initially released, except allowing you to buy stuff. That was the part that they worked out before launching it.
Also, don't forget that Amazon also has a number of other devices that are very similar: the Dash button and Amazon Fresh come to mind. The Echo fits nicely in line with it.
I am not saying they couldn't use it for something nefarious: they could definitely abuse it. I just think that they have less incentive to do so than Google.
Oh, no, Google Deflate has started... I watched the Goggle I/O event for 10 minutes. First, they talked about how they copied Siri. And now they are talking about how they copied Amazon Echo. Unlimited resources. Wasted...
Google has had voice search for much longer than Siri has been around. It just isn't branded as well (or at all).
Oh, no, Google Deflate has started... I watched the Goggle I/O event for 10 minutes. First, they talked about how they copied Siri. And now they are talking about how they copied Amazon Echo. Unlimited resources. Wasted...
And what do you think they should do?
But for so much resources and combined talent, I would expect more than new sets of emojis. They way they were dishing it out was as if they brought peace on earth. Honestly, I would have felt embarrassed to mention it even in passing. (And what was with all those jeans and dress code in general?)
Also, if you are copying Apple and Amazon, which are known for their attention to detail, how about improving things a bit? At the end of the voice demo, the app purchases the tickets (without showing prices, locations, times, etc. (and how do I set up those in the first place?)). Now, the kicker: the phone displays a QR code and asks the owner to show it at the ticket counter at the movies. Himmm.... Really? How about skipping that too and just buzzing/vibrating/texting the user with that info when actually at the movie theater? After all, they spent a whole lot of time talking about context awareness, location awareness, NLP processing, etc. Didn't Siri do this much years ago?
Anyway, too many other things like that. I don't have time to list them all. I am just saying that a lot of people expected something more, and more cohesive.