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When it does, it replies 'Here's what I found on the web...'
I try tricking Google's app with unlikely stuff but it gets it right most of the time, and gives a reasonable answer too.
Most of the narrative about Apple's maps products has simply been "Apple bad, Google good" and hasn't looked much deeper than this (with the exception of Justin O'Beirne's cartographic commentary, which is remarkably detailed though much of it is just a matter of taste). But Mossberg really hits on something here:
Apple's geocoding is way below par. The cartography is superb IMO. The routing is very good[1]. The source data isn't bad at all. But the geocoding is really error-prone. I've asked it for directions to Milton Keynes, a town with a population of 250,000 just 40 miles from here, and it won't give me anything other than the nearest branch office (in a completely different town) of a company whose HQ happens to be in MK. I've asked it for directions to the village of Brize Norton and it flat-out refuses, sending me instead to the RAF base of the same name, even if I ask for "Brize Norton village", "Brize Norton School" and so on.
Yes, geocoding is famously hard. But as an OpenStreetMap volunteer I see that for anything other than granular street-level addresses (where we don't have the data), our grassroots geocoder is more reliable than that built by the most valuable company on earth. And as feedback to OSM shows, bad geocoding is the easiest way to make people think your entire map product is no good.
[1] except there's no bike routing... but hey Apple, if you want top-notch bike routing, give me a call ;)
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Does Android really answer questions? The only one I know to work is "How high is Mount Everest?". For everything else, it just reads the first sentence of the Wikipedia article, or presents a search. I'm using a German phone, so an English one might work better. But mine doesn't even know "What color is the sky?"
I just asked mine 'what color is the sky', and it gave a reasonable answer, which is sourced from NASA. Might be a lack of corpus? Idk. Seems like if they could perfectly solve translate, that wouldn't be an issue heh heh (strong if ).
>>>But I suspect that people don’t ask those questions because, after trying a time or two and getting no answers or wrong answers, they just give up on Siri. Absolutely this. I mean, you try a few of this these "long tail" queries and you eventually say "Fuck it!" I attempt these "long tail" queries (which to me, that term sounds like some shitty play-it-down excuse from Apple) weekly just to see if Apple is finally…
FWIW none of those work with the all mighty google's personal assistant either on my nexus 5x.
I believe there is a difference, but that's purely speculation on my park. I'll be able to test it more in ~2 weeks when my Pixel XL arrives.
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FWIW none of those work with the all mighty google's personal assistant either on my nexus 5x.
Out of curiosity, is this the the actual "Google Assistant" you're referring to? Or simply Google Now? I believe there is a difference, but that's purely speculation on my park. I'll be able to test it more in ~2 weeks when my Pixel XL arrives.
Didn't realize they might be different products.
While I ask Android for occasional content (while watching tv, "How tall is blah blah actor" etc) I usually use Androids ability to get my usual directives. "Directions to ..., Weather in..., Call in ..., Set timer for...". It does both very well. I stay signed out and opted out of all Google Now features and tracking so this is just it does by default. Voice is my primary ui for my phone. It is very useful and I fin…
It reminds me in many ways of the handwriting recognition on the Newton--which is to say it appears to be only a hairsbreadth from absolutely useless.
The main gripe I have with Siri is that is still can't understand bilingual (german/english) conversation. This makes this service unusable for me. How do you ask Siri for a song, a movie, a person name which happens to be english, when the device is set to german?
Honest question, do other assistants offer that? Just curious.
I always select English as my default language in my phones, some years ago if I wanted to call someone with a Spanish name saying something like "Call Ramon Hernandez" or asking for directions "Take me to Periférico de la Juventud" I used to had to fake an American accent. Today I don't have to do that anymore, I can speak natural Spanish and then it can understand my Mexican accent when I speak English. So it's not just improving in bilingual queries, they have focused in accents and mispronunciations.
My wife is exactly the customer that's given up on asking Siri questions and uses it for timers. I can agree that Google does a better job at answering questions, but I don't like that Google requires access to just about everything in my life to be at all worthwhile, which is generally why I avoid google services. I realize I'm a minority but I don't like their all or nothing approach to slurping my data.
Does Android really answer questions? The only one I know to work is "How high is Mount Everest?". For everything else, it just reads the first sentence of the Wikipedia article, or presents a search. I'm using a German phone, so an English one might work better. But mine doesn't even know "What color is the sky?"
The wikipedia page for Knowledge graph cites Thomas Jefferson as an example, so I asked 'what years was Thomas Jefferson in office?', and Google deferred to the first paragraph of TJ's wiki.
Then I asked 'What year was Thomas Jefferson born?', and it gave me a direct answer.
So it sorta works, but it's not super awesome.
Siri is great for setting alarms and timers -- much faster than using the UI.
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I don't see it as humblebragging (any of us could create a Cook contact / ReCode readers likely know Walt Mossberg's relationship to Apple) but, worse, a faulty premise. Odds are, if you have them in your contact database, you already know them; you're not going to want Siri to give you their Wikipedia bio. Siri has myriad faults, and thankfully someone of Mossberg's stature might push Apple to address them, but this…
If you are asking specifically for _who_ somebody is, it should tell you who that person is - not give the contact card, because that card does not tell you who somebody is. At least, that's what I would expect if I asked who somebody is.