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Changes we're making to Google Assistant

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Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#111

Post by NoboruWataya »

Amazing that this post about how they are intent on delivering the "best possible user experience" just announces a ton of features they're dropping and literally not one feature they are adding.

Not that it matters to me because having bought an Amazon Echo a few years back I find these things mostly useless. It basically just does the most basic things a phone does (music, weather, news headlines), but with added friction when it misinterprets you. They are a clear example of something we rush to buy because they are "the future" before realising that the future is just the present but more tedious and with more ads.

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#112

Post by post_break »

_dain_ wrote: post #107

Reading this thread is kinda bizarre to me. Do people actually ... talk to their phones? Like for real, not just in cringeworthy scripted adverts? I've never used any of these voice assistant things and nor does anyone I know. It always seemed like a huge gimmick to me. Am I just in a bubble?

You are in a bubble. And these changes also apply to Google Home devices which are in millions of homes.

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#113

Post by esafak »

gr__or wrote: post #106
esafak wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just voice, but conversational interfaces in general that have this discoverability problem. That means chatGPT. I'm glad people are discovering it, if you excuse the pun. CUIs are not a panacea, not a replacement for conventional UIs.

I think there's a line worth drawing here: Pre-LLM voice interfaces required you to guess the command(s) the designer of the thinking were having in mind for the action you want to perform. With LLMs you can be 10ft into human-level vaguery and metaphorism and your intent might still survive. So the difference wrt discovery is that you only have to gesture at what you wanna do and, if a matching action exists, there…

When you put it that way I am reminded of my youthful efforts at solving puzzles in Sierra Online text adventures by guessing the right prompt. I guess I got early training for successfully interacting with LLMs :)

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#114

Post by throw_nbvc1234 »

fragmede wrote: post #94
verelo wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s almost like google intentionally kills good projects. I still miss Inbox more than anything. The snooze feature on an email was so amazing.

I miss Inbox too, but Gmail now has snooze functionality built in.

I had to stop using gmail/snooze on my ipad because the snoozes wouldn't be synced with my phone. Seems like such a poor implementation vs inbox.

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#115

Post by disillusioned »

eterm wrote: post #83
romanows wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you hate about the Pixel 8? I have one and find it pretty good, although I'm a very casual mobile phone user (USA-based, on Google Fi). I like that it's at least slightly smaller than the Pixel 7.

It's hard to describe what exactly I don't like. Initially I thought it was just a muscle memory thing but I've had it long enough now that I've got used to the different UI for everyday things and try to use it's shortcuts on my old phone. But overall I don't like it. I don't like how it handles notifications, it seems to hide most of them, and the ones it does show it doesn't show in a useful way compared to my old…

>I don't like how it handles notifications, it seems to hide most of them, and the ones it does show it doesn't show in a useful way compared to my old phone.

If an app's notification is set to "silent", it'll push it below a certain divider line, and some notifications may be hidden while in DND mode, and then revealed when out of DND, which is a disjointed experience and not the best, but _is_ configurable.

>I don't like how I can't quickly change the ringer volume. It used to be a separate slider when I hit the volume on my old phone. Changing now is a gamble and

Yeah, this used to be easier. Now you have to click the ellipsis at the bottom of the volume slider to open up the other volumes, but it's clearly labeled.

>finding how to get it to vibrate mode seems beyond me.

This is simple: it's the phone icon at the top of the volume interface when you change volume.

>1Password used to allow biometric unlock on my old phone.

This seems to work for me on my P8Pro

>It's fiddly to get back to the home screen. On my old phone if I scanned my thumbprint it would go back to home. On the pixel it's a finicky swipe-up-from-the-bottom thing which sometimes goes home and sometimes goes to an app-switcher.

I absolutely hate the gesture navigation but I solved this by sticking with the old school 3-button navigation, which you can change in settings.

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#116

Post by ketralnis »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #102
Bartkusa wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Managing a stopwatch on Smart Displays and Speakers. You can still set timers and alarms. How much does this cost to maintain? A stopwatch? They’re axing a STOPWATCH?! This is embarrassing.

Taking a guess, based on experiences with using Google Assistant extensively: What do you do if you have statistics saying that, say, a feature is used by a small fraction of users, and 40% of the activations of the feature were in fact not what the user wants, and instead were misunderstandings of requests for something else? Ambiguity is a massive problem.

Be better and misunderstand less often?

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#117

Post by rohansingh »

spankalee wrote: post #65
pkulak wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still have a Google Home in the kitchen, but what I really want it to display is data from my weather station, transit info, the time, etc. I can't control that damn thing at all. I've got a TidByt coming today, which I have high hopes for!

I haven't used it myself, but Home Assistant can cast to a Google Home Hub, so afaiu, you can set up a whole dashboard of widgets and controls and use it from a stock Home Hub.

I'm going to have to try that out, my whole apartment is mostly Google Home-based.

That said, we are building a Home Assistant integration at Tidbyt as well.

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#118

Post by gretch »

bilalq wrote: post #87

For all the hype "AI" gets these days, it's amazing how much things have regressed. My Android phone used to remember where I parked and show it on my Google Now feed and a push notification as I headed out, all without ever asking it to do anything. The travel.google.com site used to show my itineraries without ever adding them there. Hotels, flights, car rentals, and more would be aggregated. Doesn't do that anymor…

In the past, Google has been criticized for being anticompetitive by integrating too much with itself.

Here is an article with complaints about Google travel. https://skift.com/2020/10/20/u-s-antitrust-lawsuit-faults-go...

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#120

Post by pound »

reportingsjr wrote: post #91
dvngnt_ wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's strange. I remember watching mkbhd assistant comparison and I thought google had the more capable one

Yeah, it's no competition. Siri is terrible in comparison to google assistant. Not sure what OP is on about.

Of all 3, I'd say Alexa is the most practical for using at home, google one is kinda the smartest one but also is the most frustrating one - what worked yesterday will not work today or will work occasionally (exact same prompt's wording). Siri will not always respond but overall works fine within its somewhat limited scope, as compared to others (like number of integrations supported), but then again - ecosystem..

My biggest issue with Siri is intercom: at home we mostly speak other language than english, and when using intercom Siri often tries to parse what's being recorded, instead of just recording audio sample and send it verbatim.

Something like:

Me - Hey Siri, Intercom

Siri - intercom chime (not 'Aha?' of responding to just Hey Siri)

Me - *bjlkabdgkjhqwruo;fghnasd.mkfnlkjashfjkasdngjkasbdg* (doesn't matter, different language)

Siri (thinking she recognized some word) - Here are the results for what you asked..

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