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Google Now on your iPhone and iPad

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191–200 of 231 posts

Re: Google Now on your iPhone and iPad

#191

Post by yannyu »

louthy wrote: post #144
ceejayoz wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd guess he left earlier than he strictly had to to make the specific appointment. The "leave now" is presumably just "if you want to be on-time", not "if you want to be on-time and do some antiquing and grab some lunch first".

But I guess it should know you're on your way if you appear to be moving along the route to the event.

There's absolutely no way for it to infer that 100%. How many times have people started driving to an event or the grocery store and taken a turn towards home halfway there? I'd rather be reminded at an appropriate time even if it's unnecessary than not be reminded at all.

Re: Google Now on your iPhone and iPad

#192

Post by recursive »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #181
recursive wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He wasn't going to the exploratorium for a meeting. I'm not sure what the solution is, or if there is one, but the point is that it was not useful.

It was in a calendar (this case G+). It's not going to know you don't want a reminder for something because it's not a human and it can't read your mind. I'd rather have it remind me of things that I don't want to be reminded of than not be reminded of things I do.

The premise of google now is that it can read your mind. It's not my (the consumer) job to be concerned about implementation.

Re: Google Now on your iPhone and iPad

#193

Post by mynameisvlad »

recursive wrote: post #192
mynameisvlad wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was in a calendar (this case G+). It's not going to know you don't want a reminder for something because it's not a human and it can't read your mind. I'd rather have it remind me of things that I don't want to be reminded of than not be reminded of things I do.

The premise of google now is that it can read your mind. It's not my (the consumer) job to be concerned about implementation.

No, it's really not. The premise of G+ is that it predicts what you want to see. There's a massive difference between predicting and knowing.

Re: Google Now on your iPhone and iPad

#194

Post by mhurron »

bjustin wrote: post #124
umsm wrote: post #120

Let's talk about privacy: Does it exist? Is this something to worry about?

It sure does! Google can only scan your email, calendar, etc. if you let them. Use outlook.com or Fastmail or iCloud or another alternative if you don't like the agreement Google requires.

Of course if you don't give Google this information, you might as well not opt-in to Google Now.

Re: Google Now on your iPhone and iPad

#195

Post by tomkarlo »

speg wrote: post #53
cheald wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make sure you have search history turned on in your Google account - that's when the magic happens. Also, I'm not quite sure how the iOS experience will be compared to Android - on Android, Google Now can proactively push data to users via the ridiculously powerful notifications system, and the intents mechanism lets it hook into the other parts of the phone seamlessly. iOS' notification center is distinctly less adv…

Looks like it doesn't even use notifications on iOS. That's a big bummer :(

I suspect that using the very simplified iOS notifications would probably get irritating quickly. Sample size of 1 but my iOS notifications tray is always a disaster compared to my Android, I think because it doesn't coalesce notifications the same way so you commonly have 5+ notifications for a single app.

Re: Google Now on your iPhone and iPad

#196

Post by GilbertErik »

hmottestad wrote: post #161
GilbertErik wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having tried that myself, I discovered your suggestion causes Google Now to go a little cuckoo. It spent a week trying to suggest that I work at our local grocery store because I went there one morning for coffee, milk, and lunch ingredients. Then when I met up with some associates at a coworking spot, it tried recommending that I drive home to the grocery store. :-?

Brilliant. I recommend a real, living, breathing assistant for you then. You can hire one cheap online from India.

...but then I'd have to send them my phone. ;-)

Re: Google Now on your iPhone and iPad

#197

Post by [deleted] »

hmottestad wrote: post #161
GilbertErik wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having tried that myself, I discovered your suggestion causes Google Now to go a little cuckoo. It spent a week trying to suggest that I work at our local grocery store because I went there one morning for coffee, milk, and lunch ingredients. Then when I met up with some associates at a coworking spot, it tried recommending that I drive home to the grocery store. :-?

Brilliant. I recommend a real, living, breathing assistant for you then. You can hire one cheap online from India.

[deleted]

Re: Google Now on your iPhone and iPad

#198

Post by GilbertErik »

GilbertErik wrote: post #196
hmottestad wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brilliant. I recommend a real, living, breathing assistant for you then. You can hire one cheap online from India.

...but then I'd have to send them my phone. ;-)

...and then I'd have to have the person in India with my phone turn on mock locations, and then be constantly borrowing someone else's phone. I'd probably have to get another personal assistant here in the U.S. to follow me around so I can borrow their phone and task them with updating where I am to the resource I hire in India.

Re: Google Now on your iPhone and iPad

#199

Post by tomkarlo »

VLM wrote: post #59
nirvanatikku wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO you're assuming that folks would use Google Now on their desktop browser more than their smartphone. I wouldn't assume that. The data collection they'll get as a result of iOS is FAR superior (+ a bit more relevant for the current cards they're offering).

WRT "Google NOW" on the desktop, read the wikipedia article about Pointcast the dotcom. From $450M to $7M in two years, to zero by the third year. Its basically the same idea.

Pointcast was basically a feed reader / screensaver. It didn't have any of the predictive elements of Now (as I recall... I had it installed back in the day.)

Basically, it turned your idle monitor into a poor-man's version of a TV tuned to MSNBC. One of the major problems was that selling ads on an idle computer screen is a hard sell.

The whole point of Now is that it's _not_ a generic news feed / portal. It's all stuff customized to you, and it's not intended to be just passively viewed.

Re: Google Now on your iPhone and iPad

#200

Post by tomkarlo »

zmanian wrote: post #24

I'm a bit surprised that the iphone version of Google Now beat the Chrome version of Google Now. In my mind, Google Now is about carving out a space on devices where they can actually show high value contextual advertising outside of search. Their pitch to advertisers will be much stronger if they have a foothold on every device. I'm also surprised that this was released before Google I/O. Between near confirmation t…

Mobile devices have much better context information than desktops. And they're more likely to be present during offline spending decisions.
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