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Google Pixel Buds

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Re: Google Pixel Buds

#251

Post by moeffju »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #192

Please Google, just because my browser is in Berlin, that doesn't mean I speak German. I'd like to look at your product. I might even be interested. But I can't understand what you're telling me. I have language preferences in my account, and you definitely know who I am because you're showing my picture in the top right corner. So why does where I am take precedence over who I am?

Because Google is still really bad at e-commerce and doesn't distinguish content language from locale and local law. You should be seeing the store in your preferred language, asking for your locale's address format, and following German trade law. But alas, you are in Germany, you get the full German experience.

Also nobody really looks at accept language headers anymore, I feel.

Re: Google Pixel Buds

#252

Post by ayoisaiah »

crazygringo wrote: post #148
clusmore wrote: post #20

Off-topic but this website is such a blatant rip-off of the AirPods Pro landing page[1] (EDIT: Discussed at the time [2]), and I _hate_ the UX. I'm not sure what device this is optimised for, but it requires a tonn of scrolling, it's janky, you end up scrolling past the info you want, it breaks basic functionality like Ctrl+F. Why not just make a video instead of a webpage, since that's clearly the effect they're goi…

The entire product is a copy of the AirPods. But you know what? I'm fine with that. That's how competition works, and competition is what brings down prices. And I personally find the scrolling page design (both Apple's and Google's) pretty cool. It would drive me nuts if a site I used daily implemented something like that, like if it became a trend for news sites. But to show off a new product where I'll scroll thro…

Airpods were not the first true wireless earbuds. Samsung released the Gear IconX in 2016.

You could say Apple took an idea and made it better, and that's exactly how it should work. Google is simply trying to do the same thing here

Re: Google Pixel Buds

#253

Post by neil_s »

eastbayjake wrote: post #191
clusmore wrote: post #20

Off-topic but this website is such a blatant rip-off of the AirPods Pro landing page[1] (EDIT: Discussed at the time [2]), and I _hate_ the UX. I'm not sure what device this is optimised for, but it requires a tonn of scrolling, it's janky, you end up scrolling past the info you want, it breaks basic functionality like Ctrl+F. Why not just make a video instead of a webpage, since that's clearly the effect they're goi…

More of an Amazon Echo Buds rip-off than AirPods, yeah? (Right down to the name and competing voice assistant.)

I don't know who actually ripped off who, if at all.

But in terms of product name, if we go based on public launch date, the first generation of Pixel Buds were released in Oct 2017 and the first generation of the Amazon Buds were released Oct 2020 IIUC.

Google Assistant was announced in May 2016, Amazon Alexa was launched in 2014.

Disclaimer: I work at El Googs but not on these products. These dates I just searched on the web within 30 seconds.

Re: Google Pixel Buds

#254

Post by scrollaway »

fireattack wrote: post #249
marcus_holmes wrote: post #192

Please Google, just because my browser is in Berlin, that doesn't mean I speak German. I'd like to look at your product. I might even be interested. But I can't understand what you're telling me. I have language preferences in my account, and you definitely know who I am because you're showing my picture in the top right corner. So why does where I am take precedence over who I am?

This is an e-store page. It makes sense to follow the region instead of language preferences. The problem is they ideally should separate UI language from region settings, but most sites don't. And they may have some difficulties to do so because they could have specific products that they simply don't have info in languages other than the local one. If you just want to read the description, you can simply change the…

I live in Belgium; in an area of Belgium that primarily speaks French. I happen to speak French as well (though I'm not originally from Belgium, I am French), but given the places I've lived in my life that's more a coincidence than anything else.

I do not speak flemish (be-nl). Yet, my page of the store is in flemish.

My browser (a Google browser!) is configured to ask for pages in english, and as a fallback, in french at a lower priority. There is a French version of the store, and it's still not sending it.

And a lot of people here in Belgium speak exclusively English. German is also an official language in the country, though only actively spoken in a small part of it. (Map: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Belgium)

I have no obvious way of changing the language, other than a flag which rather points to changing the region. Turns out, in the region picker (https://store.google.com/regionpicker), "Belgium French" is a region, separate from "Flemish". When I click "Belgium French", a warning appears. In Flemish.

In other words, almost everything about language that store page can get wrong, it does get wrong.

Re: Google Pixel Buds

#255

Post by ayoisaiah »

Octoth0rpe wrote: post #225
kadoban wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What _is_ unique about AirPods? All I can come up with is the look. These ones from Google look way different. Are they really clones in some way?

The easy pairing / switching between devices. There are cheaper wireless headphones out there, ones with longer batter life, ones with better sound (haven't tried the pros yet myself), but none pair as easily. Supposedly the next version of bluetooth will enable all devices to do that, but we're not there yet.

What is the source for this claim? They only work perfectly with Apple devices. For other devices, they're function just as generic Bluetooth earbuds

Re: Google Pixel Buds

#256

Post by reaperducer »

fireattack wrote: post #249
marcus_holmes wrote: post #192

Please Google, just because my browser is in Berlin, that doesn't mean I speak German. I'd like to look at your product. I might even be interested. But I can't understand what you're telling me. I have language preferences in my account, and you definitely know who I am because you're showing my picture in the top right corner. So why does where I am take precedence over who I am?

This is an e-store page. It makes sense to follow the region instead of language preferences. The problem is they ideally should separate UI language from region settings, but most sites don't. And they may have some difficulties to do so because they could have specific products that they simply don't have info in languages other than the local one. If you just want to read the description, you can simply change the…

This is a e-store page. It makes sense to follow the region instead of language preferences.

Makes sense to whom? Not to someone who's been using a company's web site in one language, and then suddenly gets shifted to another language simply because they want to make a purchase from the same company they were communicating with seconds before.

Imaging talking to someone at your bank's call center, and then when you get transferred suddenly speaking to someone in another language. "Well, you wanted the Fraud Protection department. It makes sense to speak {$xx__language}."

Computers are supposed to work for people, not the other way around. We have grown accustomed to half-assery, using the excuse that "everyone else does it."

Just today I received a package from Amazon. A simple cat food bowl. I had to put it together. I remember when it was so unusual for production burdens to be shifted to the consumer that such products were labeled "some assembly required." Now we're so used to companies not completing their work, that we make excuses for them. Enough.

Re: Google Pixel Buds

#259

Post by reaperducer »

kevincox wrote: post #244
satysin wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wondered wtf the browsers language setting is for. Can a website not query this for the preferred language rather than make a language decision based on an IP address geo lookup? I am English, my browsers language order is to set English (UK) then English (generic). No foreign languages. However I live in [redacted] and if I visit a site it will give me a [redacted] version due to my location rather than the…

It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem which is incredibly frustrating, I wish websites would start to respect it so users start to configure their browser properly. Users don't configure it (and quite possibly don't know how) so many websites ignore it. Many websites ignore it so it isn't that useful to learn how to configure it.

On my sites, the URL parameters wins. For example, when the user is explicitly changing a page's language.

#2 is the site language cookie from a previous visit. If that fails, #3 is the language the browser requests. If all those fail, English, because it is the most common language the company uses internally.

In our user testing, we run into a lot of situations where the computer's primary user, and the person who set it up, are a child, who speaks English. But our site is more geared toward their parents, who often will speak the language of their homeland. For this reason, I make it stupidly easy to change languages, and we have a policy that ALL content has to be translated into English, Spanish, and Chinese, which covers 99.8% of our customers.

You don't find out these sorts of things through modern "telemetry" gathering and such current methods of testing. You find these things out by going into the field and watching your customers use your products. But interacting with wetware is beneath people in the SV bubble.

Re: Google Pixel Buds

#260

Post by DevKoala »

hocuspocus wrote: post #196
crazygringo wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you realize how insanely hard that actually is to do? It's not like you just localize some webpages and add a currency option to your payment. You've got to deal with certification, taxes, customs, warehousing, shipping partners, warranties, refund, and all with wildly varying levels of government agency cooperation and efficiency. Apple is the only consumer company I know of who does this well, because it's their…

> (And yes you can work with local distributors, but that doesn't solve all problems, presents its own set of complex challenges, and sometimes may simply not be economically viable -- e.g. their cut will make the product non-profitable, and there isn't a market to sell at a higher price.) Cry me a river. I can buy a $150 Nokia at the electronics store down the road, but somehow it's too hard for Google to sell its P…

Clearly Google sees your part of the world as a third rate market.

You should treat their brand the same way. In the USA, the perception isn't of Google as a quality brand. More of an also-ran.

PS: I love their cloud services. I just don't know why they keep insisting on trying to make their hardware happen.

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