Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Say hello to Google Allo: a smarter messaging app

googleblog.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

531–540 of 543 posts

Re: Say hello to Google Allo: a smarter messaging app

#531

Post by drroboto »

corobo wrote: post #526
DanTheManPR wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only FB would release a proper desktop client for their messaging services. They could own that space.

I use messenger.com more often than I use Facebook at this point. I know it's not technically a desktop app but you could probably set up a shortcut with something like (assuming chrome. Don't know if FF has the same feature) "path\to\chrome\chrome.exe" --app= https://www.messenger.com Edit: Actually testing that, that's actually pretty neat. I'm going to do that when I get home!

I use franz http://meetfranz.com/ specifically for that purpose

Re: Say hello to Google Allo: a smarter messaging app

#533

Post by tjl »

nzp wrote: post #504
tjl wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But, they could have it encrypted except when you explicitly message the assistant. They can also get the full text of the conversation on-device and do the machine learning on it. After all, Apple is doing it for photos, so text should be easier.

I wouldn't know, but from what one can hear from prominent Apple pundits and podcasters, Apple is not doing great at all in this regard, to put it mildly, compared to Google (and other data vacuumers). Examples: Google Photos is running circles around Photos, and Alexa around Siri. People who love and live Apple admit Apple is pathetic in this space. I doubt it's because Apple is incompetent. These problems require h…

Alexa is basically an audio command line. You have to say things specifically. Plus, Alexa is pretty restrictive in that it only needs to handle English (and American English at that). It also has a limited set of things it can do since it's only audio.

With Siri you can actually mix languages. So you can ask in French about an English film title. I don't know how good Alexa is about these kinds of things. Considering that it's only for the US, I can't know.

I don't know if Google Photos is running circles around Photos. I know a new version just came out with macOS Sierra. I just read an article today over on Six Colours that praised its search capabilities. I don't use Google Photos or Apple's. I haven't had a camera in years and only got my first cell phone this year (I was given an iPhone 5).

I completely rule Alexa out from these kinds of discussions until Amazon bothers to sell it elsewhere. It's been a consistent issue with Amazon. It took several years before we got the Kindle in Canada, we were promised Amazon's MP3 store, but we're still waiting. Our Amazon Prime only covers shipping, not any of the books or video.

Siri does what I need it to do on my phone, but I don't really ask for much. I mainly use it for timers and creating appointments. Those have all worked perfectly, even when I'm standing right next to my kitchen fan or the speakers of my stereo.

Re: Say hello to Google Allo: a smarter messaging app

#534

Post by hobarrera »

pmarreck wrote: post #431
guessmyname wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But forget to touch your phone for a couple of minutes and the web session will automatically disconnect because the phone went to standby mode, which apparently interferes with the sync between the mobile application and the web browser session. My experience is that I can only rely on the web for a short conversation until my phone goes to sleep.

As a datapoint, I don't believe this occurs on iOS.

It does not. It's specific to the Android app, and also happens when using the android app on Sailfish OS and alike.

Re: Say hello to Google Allo: a smarter messaging app

#535

Post by hobarrera »

Nanite wrote: post #217
Mizza wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They still have their XMPP as well, but they never enabled SSL so it sends messages in plaintext and won't federate to modern XMPP servers/clients. What a clusterfuck of a company.

Agreed they never appreciated what they had with Google Talk. Closing XMPP support and have it replaced by Hangouts was a huge mistake.

> Closing XMPP support and have it replaced by Hangouts was a huge mistake.

It wasn't a mistake, it was deliberate with the intention to lock in users.

Re: Say hello to Google Allo: a smarter messaging app

#536

Post by makecheck »

whack wrote: post #249
jotux wrote: post #72

So now google has Voice, Messenger, Hangouts, Allo, and Duo all with overlapping functionality? I wish they would just focus on making Hangouts work really well.

There was a NYtimes article a few years ago, which I thought perfectly captured the fundamental difference between Apple and Google's product planning process. Apple runs on Intelligent Design. You have a room full of geniuses who decide what to build, make sure it fits perfectly into their overall product portfolio with minimal overlap or cannibalization, spend years in a dark secret room building it until it's perf…

Oh, it’s much worse than that. Once you add in Google’s platform (Android), you get even more “visions” such as the “pre-Google open-source variant” of an Android app (before Google’s fork of it to add “improvements”), and usually at least one crappy version installed by the phone carrier. And typically none of these can be removed, all part of the ROM. I remember seeing at least THREE variants of several common apps when using Android. I couldn’t believe it was so unfocused.

Re: Say hello to Google Allo: a smarter messaging app

#537

Post by largote »

Nullabillity wrote: post #97
rtpg wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are other reasons, but I really dislike using my phone number as an ID. Phone numbers are much harder to change , so if some annoying person gets a hold of it suddenly they can harass me across networks. This is a thing that actually happens! A big reason why I don't like telegram (even if everything else is awesome). I'm cool with my account being linked to a phone number, but I'd rather avoid giving t…

IIRC, Telegram allows you to set a username and give that out instead.

But you can still be nagged if someone finds your phone number.

Re: Say hello to Google Allo: a smarter messaging app

#538

Post by nzp »

tjl wrote: post #533
nzp wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't know, but from what one can hear from prominent Apple pundits and podcasters, Apple is not doing great at all in this regard, to put it mildly, compared to Google (and other data vacuumers). Examples: Google Photos is running circles around Photos, and Alexa around Siri. People who love and live Apple admit Apple is pathetic in this space. I doubt it's because Apple is incompetent. These problems require h…

Alexa is basically an audio command line. You have to say things specifically. Plus, Alexa is pretty restrictive in that it only needs to handle English (and American English at that). It also has a limited set of things it can do since it's only audio. With Siri you can actually mix languages. So you can ask in French about an English film title. I don't know how good Alexa is about these kinds of things. Considerin…

Hm, interesting. Well, as I said, I don't know personally (I have neither an Apple device nor Alexa), but that was my impression from what people who love Apple and also have Alexa and Google Photos say.

As for Google Photos, it makes mistakes, false positives mostly (as a funny example, for my photos so far it consistently thinks cats are dogs, although it also recognizes the same cats correctly) and sometimes it's too “eager” (“cars” will produce results where cars should be but are not actually in the photo). Sometimes it makes bizarrely trivial mistakes considering how smart it is generally: it categorized photos of human cadavers and anatomy specimens I made at the local university institute of anatomy as “Christmas”, I guess because they were made on Christmas day. But it will correctly find true positives. It also correctly visually recognizes notable places globally (that is, without geotags) and various things, concepts etc. even if they're a completely marginal subject in a photo. One thing that impressed me was a cat video it edited out of multiple clips with almost perfect music some 5-10 minutes after I uploaded the first items and started using it.

Re: Say hello to Google Allo: a smarter messaging app

#539

Post by tjl »

nzp wrote: post #538
tjl wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alexa is basically an audio command line. You have to say things specifically. Plus, Alexa is pretty restrictive in that it only needs to handle English (and American English at that). It also has a limited set of things it can do since it's only audio. With Siri you can actually mix languages. So you can ask in French about an English film title. I don't know how good Alexa is about these kinds of things. Considerin…

Hm, interesting. Well, as I said, I don't know personally (I have neither an Apple device nor Alexa), but that was my impression from what people who love Apple and also have Alexa and Google Photos say. As for Google Photos, it makes mistakes, false positives mostly (as a funny example, for my photos so far it consistently thinks cats are dogs, although it also recognizes the same cats correctly) and sometimes it's…

People are pretty happy with Alexa, but I've heard it's pretty strict in how you say things. The 3rd party extensions require you to ask things with specific phrases which makes things a lot easier to handle, but it's harder for the user.

The post about Apple's Photos I found linked on Six Colours, but it's on Macworld [1]. In it, he searches for a zebra and it gave his few photos that he took of zebras at the zoo. So, that worked well, but the search for dogs made the same mistake as you state Google Photos made (cats mistaken for dogs). So, I think that Apple's Photos is probably somewhat close to Google Photos, but maybe not quite as good. It's not exactly Google running circles around it.

[1] http://www.macworld.com/article/3122966/macs/6-photos-featur...

Post reply on HN