Changes we're making to Google Assistant

https://blog.google/products/assistant/google-assistant-update-january-2024/

by kkkkkkk • 3 years ago

226 292 3 years ago

A lot of the changes just don't make any sense? Some of the features removed:

- Using your voice to send an email, video or audio message. You can still make calls and send text messages - Rescheduling an event in Google Calendar with your voice. You can still schedule a new event. - Asking to take certain actions by voice, such as send a payment, make a reservation, or post to social media. You can still ask Assistant to open your installed apps. - Asking to meditate with Calm. You can still ask for meditation options with media providers such as YouTube.

All of these seem to fall under the umbrella of "features that actually make the assistant an assistant"/connecting the assistant to other apps, which I imagine is exactly the opposite of where the Assistant trend is going, especially with LLMs. Just speaking to a device about which action you want to take and not needing to think which app you need to open and navigate feels like the UX of the future, whatever this is seems like the opposite.

jpcfl• 3 years ago

My guess is that a lot of these features are hard-coded, and they are deprecating them in order to replace them with a more generic LLM-based assistant.

talleyrand• 3 years ago

I really hope that this is the case.

aquova• 3 years ago

And despite how bullish everyone seems to be on LLMs, I suspect we'll see those very same LLM features get ripped out within 5 years or so.

tlogan2• 3 years ago

Perhaps, but it seems like a strange approach. I would assume they would retain these features and then gradually replace each one with an LLM-based approach.

alejo• 3 years ago

If this was the case, wouldn’t had been better to axe these features once they were ready to roll out the new LLM-based functionality?

matt_heimer• 3 years ago

They are probably statistically some of the lesser used features and since there were layoffs in Assistant ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38947224 ) they are probably looking to shrink the codebase being maintained.

Assistant has trained our household into thinking that its pretty limited in what it can do so everyone in our home only uses it for basic things. Since Google's assistant can't accomplish more than most basic tasks people don't use more than the basic tasks. No one wants to learn the appropriate subset of English to speak the Google assistant dialect. You really need the voice assistants to be reliable and basic or extremely capable. There is no real middle ground here for most users.

Hopefully once LLMs get more integrated with voice assistants we will move more towards the extremely capable side of the spectrum.

esafak6• 3 years ago

Just because an LLM can better parse what you're saying it does not mean the business logic to act on it exists. The feature discoverability and churn problem will still exist.

ActionHank• 3 years ago

So they can sell you the AI assistant subscription that will be out later this year.

iudqnolq• 3 years ago

I think most of those features reply with hard coded UI elements rather than replying with generic text.

photon_collider• 3 years ago

Here’s the list of changes: https://support.google.com/assistant/answer/13971691

Metacelsus• 3 years ago

Whenever there's a vague press release about "changes we're making", it's bound to be changes for the worse.

Eddy_Viscosity2• 3 years ago

They should call it the "Enshittification Log"

brnt• 3 years ago

And have Patrick Stewart read out loud.

kevstev• 3 years ago

True. Ten or more like 15 years ago I would have been excited about this title from Google. Now I am just like "oh great what am I losing now?!"

Its a shame, its been a LONG time since Google surprised and delighted me like they did many times during the 00s.

wvenable3• 3 years ago

I laughed when I saw the headline, saw it was Google, and then the article is just a list of everything they are removing. It's almost parody.

smileysteve2• 3 years ago

Defaulting to search or YouTube feels like a money / metrics grab.

No longer displaying commute time to work, but you can check it on maps? So, they're removing the assistant part into a search box.

nostrademons• 3 years ago

I suspect it's org politics - but yes, in search of money and metrics.

Assistant alienated a lot of other departments from 2016-2020 with their rapid rise and rapid growth in headcount (and ability to push integrations through whether they were a good idea or not). Then they failed to make significant money, right into an economic environment where making money was prioritized much more highly than speculative researchey new markets. These changes are them trying to make themselves indispensable to other PA's metrics, so that when budgets are set, they can argue "You can't cut Assistant, look at the drop in searches & YouTube views that would result in." Same reason why they were hit harder in the layoffs than other more profitable products.

micromacrofoot• 3 years ago

Calls made from speakers and Smart Displays will not show up with a caller ID unless you’re using Duo.

who the hell is using Duo

nikanj• 3 years ago

Nobody, that’s why they’re using this opportunity to force people to it

smileysteve2• 3 years ago

Wait, I thought Duo was now Gmail meet?

Even Google product teams can't keep track of Google product changes. This one happened a year ago!?

hulitu• 3 years ago

Changes we're making to Google Assistant

As always: "Bug fixes and performance improvements". /s

jmholla• 3 years ago

In this case it's not. It seems to be the removal of a bunch of useful features.

trey-jones• 3 years ago

Sometimes I use voice for search.

My primary use-case is creating reminders. For this I use (of course), the microphone in the search bar. I guess I'll have to find the next best way. Maybe it will end up being better.

twisteriffic3• 3 years ago

Unless things have changed recently, you can't even do that if you use a workspace account. No explanation of why, it just silently fails.

I'm down to three gestures with assistant:

- play white noise. 50% success rate. Half the time it plays white stripes or some random death metal, which is great when my kids are trying to sleep.

- "ok google, stop". This works reasonably reliably.

- "I wasn't talking to you". For the 3-6 times per day when it activates for seemingly no reason and where no activation logs are ever created.

If I can find a decent internet-attached photo frame to replace it I'm out.

TrueDuality• 3 years ago

I was really hoping something had forced Google to allow the full disabling of the assistant. I really don't find it useful and accidentally trigger it more often than I care to admit.

Make it truly useful or get out of my way.

bboygravity• 3 years ago

I know what would be a killer feature: the ability to turn it completely off and delete it and never have to see it ever again.

firtoz2• 3 years ago

Anything else that allows me to set alarms and timers without having to touch my phone?

nix0n• 3 years ago

I've been using a 1980s-style digital watch for this.

It's good enough for cooking, which is the only time I care about not touching my phone.

HarHarVeryFunny2• 3 years ago

"Hey Siri, set 10 minute timer". But I suppose you meant for Android ?

avsteele• 3 years ago

"ok google" : "Set timer for x minutes" works for alarm, etc...

omoikane• 3 years ago

turn it completely off

Instructions from first search result for "disable google assistant" might work? I found the option buried about 5 menus deep[1], but I left it on since it never triggers for me anyways, probably because I didn't set it up.

[1] Settings -> Google -> Google applications -> Search and assistant -> Google Assistant -> General -> Disable

My phone UI language is not English, the list above are my translations, actual text will likely be different.

thinkingemote• 3 years ago

This turns it off but it does not disable the ways it shows itself as asking to turn it back on via gestures, or in other menus and applications.

https://www.howtogeek.com/741457/how-to-disable-the-google-a... worked for me

eterm2• 3 years ago

Wow that's a big list of surprisingly useful features being ripped out.

I'd already noticed my new phone (pixel 8, I fucking hate it) had trouble setting a simple timer with a voice command ( last time I tried it gave me a shitty youtube video result of a 10 minute timer!?!), but this list of removed features goes further, removing other basic functionality from voice assistance.

If all a voice assistant can do is google my "command" and read me the results, that's a terrible experience. The whole selling point (to me) is the ability to do something magic with what I'm asking.

singularity2001• 3 years ago

Google has to cater to its reputation of biggest destructor of products

Bartkusa• 3 years ago

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.

JoshTriplett2• 3 years ago

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.

romanows2• 3 years ago

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.

eterm2• 3 years ago

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 phone. What exactly is different I can't say, but it's weird.

It also handles permissions differently. Some apps when I disable certain permissons get stuck in a permission loop because they can't cope with the idea of only having a particular permission denied. I never had this problem with my old phone despite it also having granular permissions. Seems to be related to a change in how notification permissions are handled exactly.

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

1Password used to allow biometric unlock on my old phone. I can't get that to work on my new phone so have to type the master password (extremely long password) on a mobile device, which makes it useless to me. I'm not going to type my master password on a phone keypad in public, that's asking for it to leak.

The fingerprint sensor is okay, but I preferred the below-screen sensor on my old phone.

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.

Setting up the phone required giving google rather more permissions than I was comfortable with, but denying them locked out key features of the phone so I felt forced to accept.

The pixel 8 is also slightly smaller than my old phone, though of course I knew that when I bought it. I didn't realise how much 0.1inches was going to feel like a major loss. I didn't want to go over-sized with the pixel 8 pro though.

Overall a downgrade and really horrible experience compared to my old phone, which I only replaced because it was so old and stopped getting regular updates. It was a Huawei P20 pro and in terms of general use still feels just as fast as it did when it was new.

The only feature I like that the pixel 8 has which my old phone doesn't is the wireless charging. That's a game changer when it comes to preventing wires wearing out.

ksjskskskkk4• 3 years ago

joined cellular radio and wifi button now just called "internet"...

Kon-Peki• 3 years ago

last time I tried it gave me a shitty youtube video result of a 10 minute timer!?!

A YouTube video has the chance to earn them advertising revenue. A 10-minute timer does not.

However, they are clearly missing an opportunity: "Your 10-minute timer, sponsored by Burger King, has finished. Would you like to order a Whopper to be delivered by Uber Eats?"

peeters2• 3 years ago

Another step in Android's steady progression of become less and less useful hands-free. It's incredible to me that my experience with my Nexus One in 2010 was better than it is today with a Pixel 7. The fact that it arbitrarily decides to not recognize some contacts on some days. The fact that it can't handle me spelling out a street name when it insists on replacing the street name that I'm saying with something completely different. The fact that YouTube Music would always play "some driving music" that it chooses over my playlist literally called "Driving Music", when I would say "Play my Driving Music Playlist on YouTube Music". And now the assistant is getting even less personalized, which means it will care even less about what you're literally saying, and just send you into a swamp of generic assumptions.

Assistants were SO much more usable when they would require strict trigger language, and interpret it literally and formulaically. Yes you would have to learn its language, but once you did, you could actually accomplish what you wanted to accomplish, unlike today.

avtolik• 3 years ago

Yep. It is a pretty useless device if you cannot hold it in your hand and unlock it. So for example, when I ride my bike I can pause the music or receive a call and not much else.

peeters2• 3 years ago

I wonder how many road deaths their declining hands-free quality has contributed to? I'd wager the number has more than two digits. It's one thing to never have supported something hands-free, but when something that you used to be able to regularly do hands-free all of a sudden doesn't work, drivers are bound to get frustrated and use the device hand-held.

Workaccount2• 3 years ago

Google needs to toss Sundar and get a competent CEO who can forcefully smash the org back into line.

Google has turned into these little micro clusters of ideologies and functional philosophies, leading to a horrifically fragmented mess of google branded products. All which come loaded now with end-of-life anxiety as google just farts out products that seem to dissipate just as fast.

The fact that most google apps function better on iOS than Pixel phones should be enough to get any sane board to take action. This is without even mentioning the disaster that search has become, or completely dropping the ball on LLMs.

twisteriffic3• 3 years ago

Google has turned into these little micro clusters of ideologies and functional philosophies, leading to a horrifically fragmented mess

Every large software org eventually becomes Microsoft.

wildrhythms• 3 years ago

I think upper management at big tech thinks having these internal warring factions somehow creates better products. What I hear from friends in FAANG is the VPs and directors don't even know what they're supposed to be working on most of the time.

pavel_lishin• 3 years ago

Mine decided to helpfully alert me that there were three birthdays on January 1st, because it had somehow reset some contacts' birthdays to Jan 1, 1970.

Except when I went to check the Contacts to fix them, they had no birthday at all.

Death by a thousand cuts.

ksjskskskkk4• 3 years ago

another thing your pixel 7 cannot do: copy Chinese text.

even on apps like google maps. open any place with Chinese chars in the name. toggle the app switcher carousel. try to select the name of the place. only non Chinese text will be copied.

pianohacker• 3 years ago

I'm pretty convinced this is because the app switcher can recognize _whether_ a part of an app's UI is a native text field and not just an image, but it's not smart enough to pull the text out. I've seen it make number 0 -> letter O and other such mistakes before, so I'm convinced it's using OCR. Which is probably harder for Chinese.

It's crazy to me that it can't just use the accessibility APIs.

pragmaticpro• 3 years ago

Asking to take certain actions by voice, such as send a payment, make a reservation, or post to social media. You can still ask Assistant to open your installed apps.

This seems to imply that apps which feature 'app actions' would no longer work properly and will need to be opened via assistant separately...

Sounds like a major regression for those scenarios with needing to issue a separate command to open an app.

jacooper2• 3 years ago

TBH all Classic voixe assistants are terrible, they should be replaced with any of the mainstream LLM models we have.

HarHarVeryFunny2• 3 years ago

To me the problem isn't lack of language understanding - it's more lack of integration with useful actions, although LLM support would certainly help with feature discovery and flexible invocation of actions.

Presumably Google Assistant is on it's way to being replaced by ChatGPT with plugins, although these would need access to phone APIs to do local stuff.

jacooper2• 3 years ago

True, but the assistant needs to be actually good to do such things, it isn't good enough now.

petee• 3 years ago

It says you can only add new events now and not reschedule...does that mean when Assistant gets the info wrong for the event I'll have to go in and manually change it? It screws up constantly, so it sounds like a headache

asdajksah2123• 3 years ago

I'm quite torn on this (to be fair, I rarely use voice commands at all...I've found it's usually more effort to fix things when it gets it wrong than the cumulative sum of all the times it may save me any time whatsoever).

1. I can see how this is absolutely frustrating for someone who uses one of these commands regularly.

2. At the same time, one of the issues with voice commands relative to say keyboard input is the lack of delineation. If I hit Ctrl + Enter on my keyboard, there's no way for the computer to interpret that any differently. However, that's not the case with voice commands. It needs to keep determining (a) what I said, (b) whether it's a command or just voice, (c) whether it's a command it's supposed to execute and that's before it even figures out waht to execute. But the problem is that as the number of voice commands increases, the number of false "this is a command and not just voice" triggers will increase.

There's probably a genuine benefit for Google's users in the universe of commands being very small as long as the command that's removed is not one they use.

I've noticed several of the options are "you can use a custom routine to do this instead". Maybe Google should have included the custom routine and made it togglable.

w0m• 3 years ago

and this sucks.

afavour8• 3 years ago

To me this highlights the core failure with all these voice-driven UIs: you have absolutely no idea what is possible and what isn't. Discoverability is zero, which makes big changes like this even more disruptive.

I've already decided that I'm done with Google's smart assistant stuff in any case. I have a Google Home with a screen in my kitchen and the most-used feature (aside from just existing as a photo frame) was an integration with a really useful shopping list app called AnyList. It certainly wasn't complex, we'd say "Hey Google, add <x> to the shopping list" and it would do it. But it was very useful: I'd have something in my hands I just pulled from the fridge (e.g. milk) and be able to add it to the list without interrupting what I'm doing. If it had to wait until I was done for me to pull out my phone I'd inevitably forget.

Then one day Google decided to disable that integration. Now the only shopping list you can add to is one Google provides (which naturally has way fewer features than AnyList). They've never provided even the remotest defense for why they've removed it, it's very obviously to lock us into the Google ecosystem. So our Google Home is now a glorified photo frame that plays music from time to time (and even then prioritizes cover versions and YouTube videos over actual songs, presumably because $$$)

paradox4602• 3 years ago

The removal of the AnyList integration drove us to get an Alexa assistant device in the kitchen. It still works there

Never thought amazon would have the better assistant ecosystem. Google already has my email and calendar and other stuff, Amazon I have to auth into them like a third party. But it's become true

afavour8• 3 years ago

I've been meaning to get around to trying an Apple HomePod Mini, the AnyList integration on my iPhone works okay (thought as an infuriating two-step process, "Hey Siri, add to shopping list" ... "milk") so hopefully it would be replicable on the pod, too. Seems like the least worst option.

pflenker• 3 years ago

On top of what you mentioned in your first sentence, any ideas to improve discoverability are horrible. I hate it when Alexa does not play my podcast right away but explains to me how I can change episodes. I despise Alexa for telling me that I have some notification before starting my timer. And so on - any voice only attempt to explain me something without me asking for it means adding a lot of friction between me and my goal.

ethbr1• 3 years ago

The issue is that everyone removed hierarchical menus and replaced them with... nothing.

There is no command ontology anymore. Consequently, discovering commands in-app is UX anathema.

"Use the internet, buddy. One of our customers probably documented how-to somewhere on it."

walterbell2• 3 years ago

Alexa for telling me that I have some notification before starting my timer

  Device > Settings > Sounds > Notification > none

"Do Not Disturb" will suppress notifications without affecting alarms and timers.

happymellon2• 3 years ago

A usual conversation my wife had with Google:

okay Google set a timer for 15 mins

Certainly, and did you know I can also set an alarm for 6 am in the kitchen?

Fuck off Google

RexM• 3 years ago

Yes... when it does anything other than what I ask, it makes me feel like it's wasting my time.

Alexa recently started responding with "Good afternoon! <the normal response>" and it irks me more than it probably should. I've looked to see if I can turn it off and can't find the option.

I don't need pleasantries from a machine.

SebRollen• 3 years ago

The constant "By the way..." from Alexa drove me nuts.

If you say "Alexa, stop by the way", it'll get the device to stop responding with follow-ups for ~24h. I ended up creating a routine that runs every night at 4am to lower the volume to zero, automatically say "stop by the way" to the device, and then raise the volume a minute later, and Alexa has stopped with the follow ups

rco8786• 3 years ago

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve disabled notifications on my Alexa settings. And yet there it is…another yellow ring.

genman• 3 years ago

This looks like an anti competitive action that should be investigated.

lxgr3• 3 years ago

I think Google has actually removed all third-party integrations for Assistant a while ago: https://developers.google.com/assistant/ca-sunset

In other words, they have just closed down that entire ecosystem. I don't think there's an antitrust angle here: Forcing e.g. Apple to allow third-party apps or app stores seems within reach (at least in the EU); this would be more like forcing Apple to enable apps in a world where they don't even exist (anymore).

1234letshaveatw• 3 years ago

you can tell someone lives in California when the most-used assistant feature isn't asking about the weather

afavour8• 3 years ago

Quite the opposite. I bike the kids to school every morning. The weather is too important to be summed up by a voice summary, I need the hour by hour details.

ilzmastr• 3 years ago

Funny but true, its usually a front page story in the Chronicle if it is going to rain during the week

guyzero• 3 years ago

I live in California and it's still my most-used feature. I gotta know if I need to dress for 17C or 19C.

pkulak3• 3 years ago

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!

spankalee• 3 years ago

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.

wolverine876• 3 years ago

Just setup a monitor with some browser windows on it? Or one browser window with a local page that embeds the info?

esafak6• 3 years ago

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.

gr__or• 3 years ago

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 is a chance it will be understood.

I'd wager we'll see a renaissance of voice assistants with LLMs, especially once the good-enough ones can run on device.

dylan604• 3 years ago

it reminds me of all the old text games like Zorg or whatever where they gave you a cursor leaving you to figure out what you could ask/say/do. which is fine for a game. it sux for a "tool"

seanmcdirmid• 3 years ago

There are obviously cases where CUIs work well: while driving if you don’t have a physical button to do the thing you want, the CUI is better than a screen UI, and if it’s a complex thing, you would never have a physical button for it anyways. In the home when you want to control devices in the morning “open all the shades” or “open the north shades”, unlock the door and start the car, etc…

Not really conversations though, more like accessible commands. I don’t think we get conversations until the tech improves and the latency goes way down, meaning on device processing of speech at the very least.

RandomWorker2• 3 years ago

Funny fact is that this is core use case I use siri to add things to the reminders app which I have a smart list called "shopping list." It's amazing how great this is, and how many times I use this.

edu• 3 years ago

I do exactly the same.

axolttl88• 3 years ago

This and music control are the uniques cases where Siri Just Works for me. “Add toothpaste to my shopping list” no fluff no nonsense replies, just “I added that to the shopping list” - and it’s on my phone’s Reminders in that list.

I wonder how well they’ve optimised Siri for a just few specific use cases like this, because nothing else seems to reliably work on it.

maaaaattttt• 3 years ago

I second this. My two other derived commands I use every day are “remind in 2 hours to do X” or “remind me Friday at 7 to take Y”. This and “timer X minutes”.

I would be very sad if these were to disappear or to stop working as well as it does now (I like that if I say “remind me tomorrow” when it’s right past midnight it asks for confirmation that I actually mean the same day since it’s “already tomorrow”)

downWidOutaFite• 3 years ago

I think this kind of highlights the ios vs android user mentality. afavour is annoyed that google is trying to lock them into only using google's shopping list while you love when apple "just works" within their ecosystem.

theptip3• 3 years ago

This problem can be solved pretty soon though; given a good enough LLM, and perhaps for power users a configurable set of integrations, you should be able to make any language request, translate it into verbs, and ask for an explanation if you get confusing results. With in-context learning perhaps you can even get to the holy grail of “when I ask for X, please always apply interpretation Y” for personalization.

I think the broader context here is that Google is downsizing the current Assistant team in preparation for an LLM-based replacement, perhaps once Gemini has rolled out.

alganet3• 3 years ago

Makes sense. What is a good LLM though? I think there's a lot of questions hidden in that part of the solution.

kevin_thibedeau2• 3 years ago

I think it's hilarious that you can't reliably ask Assistant "what is this song?" any more but they've provided a dedicated button for what should be an easy query to process.

geoelectric• 3 years ago

Echo still syncs with AnyList fwiw.

I have an Alexa list called “Grocery” that does a 2-way sync, and use it to accelerate my online Safeway orders via AnyList.

You can sync to the default Amazon Shopping list too, but I find it works better if you have a secondary one specifically for sync.

ckrailo• 3 years ago

Home Assistant can cast dashboard/media/etc to your display, has shopping lists, and has voice assistance. https://www.home-assistant.io/

dotancohen3• 3 years ago

  > Discoverability is zero

What's wrong with that? In VIM I like the fact that there is no interface cluttering my workspace. If I need a feature, I search for it online.

jfim2• 3 years ago

Vim has an actual manual and things stay relatively stable across releases. It's not the case for the voice assistants, where stuff breaks randomly and features are added/removed without notification.

cure• 3 years ago

VIM is well designed and stable, so you can learn the interface and be confident that it will work for you next time you use it. It's an amazing tool.

Today's voice assistants are the opposite. They are unreliable and completely unstable. They don't have a clear list of commands they understand, let alone some sort of menu system - the documented commands on the manufacturer's websites often don't work. They also randomly change what they can do: stuff stops working for no obviously reason.

For example - yesterday, my son's Nest Audio suddenly refused to set a music alarm, claiming "this device doesn't support that feature yet" (it's literally a speaker for music...). It worked the day before.

rolltrunhert• 3 years ago

Yikes. About the discoverability issue. I can add a little story.

I can not for the love of my life get Siri to resume play in my native tongue. It is supported by Siri, I just have no clue on earth on what phrases she accepts. Tried many, started feeling dumb. Turned off Siri.

davely• 3 years ago

The kids used to love our Google mini speaker. There were voice activated games, normal stories, choose your own adventure style stories and a fun little “animal of the day” feature.

Every single one of those things have been deprecated and removed for… reasons?

All we can do with the speaker now is ask it to play music, get the weather, or set a timer.

droopyEyelids3• 3 years ago

I remember being jealous of how much friends could do with the google assistant while i was stuck with siri.

Surprising to hear that Google assistant is now equivalent to Siri!

6figurelenins3• 3 years ago

"Hey Google, add <x> to the shopping list"... was very useful... Then one day Google decided to disable that integration. Now the only shopping list you can add to is one Google provides

If I recall correctly, "add to my list" originally went to shoppinglist.google.com. They rolled it into Keep[1] ("note to self," tags, sharing).

It works well. However...

In 2016, I figured "tell me showtimes for $MOVIE in $CITY" should work. It still doesn't work. It may never work, because "robot butler with ads" is no one's idea of the future. (Maybe Jeff.)

A fire-and-forget voice action like "add to list" should still work(?). For conversations[2], we can pray Gemini is less infuriating.

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and... [2] https://developers.google.com/assistant/ca-sunset

Eezee• 3 years ago

Did you actually try your cinema prompt recently? I just asked my pixel phone "tell me showtimes for aquaman in Berlin" and it immediately opened an overview of cinemas with showtimes for the Aquaman movie today with options to buy the ticket.

Same for the weather prompt someone else posted above and contrary to their experience it showed me exactly what I expected.

I'm a bit confused if those examples are something that didn't work in the past or if it's something that somehow doesn't work properly in the US right now.

nf3• 3 years ago

Who in their right mind would bring this kind of intrusive technology into their home, right into their most intimate space? I seriously don't get it. I mean what's wrong with keeping a pen & paper shopping list on your fridge?

afavour8• 3 years ago

In what world is your kitchen your most intimate space?

squarefoot• 3 years ago

I'd have something in my hands I just pulled from the fridge (e.g. milk) and be able to add it to the list without interrupting what I'm doing.

Non user-hostile technology would happily solve this problem: you pull from the fridge what is about to finish or before throwing the empty container into the trash, put it in front of a mini camera mounted on the fridge, image (possibly also barcode) recognition would identify the product, then you say a magic word and it would be added it to your list directly on the phone, then software would calculate the best path to the shops having in stock the products in the list. Sadly, this would be hijacked by businesses in no time by making it dependent from some cloud services then selling your data to other advertisers or by pestering you with offers of similar competing products. As of today, I still prefer a pen and a piece of paper over any type of automation.

_nivlac_• 3 years ago

I had the same issue with the Google Assistant/AnyList integration, and I hacked together a pair of Lambda functions to move Keep list items to an AnyList list. Both unofficial APIs ;)

If anybody's curious, repo with most of the code is here: https://github.com/csimpf/keep2anylist. Happy to answer any questions about it!

xnx• 3 years ago

A big portion of the limited discovery of available commands is deliberate so as not to limit what you might ask it to do, which can be used as input for future capabilities.

WirelessGigabit• 3 years ago

I think in general integration is the biggest issues with these voice assistants.

I want to use Microsoft ToDo for my tasks. Why? I use Outlook everywhere. I don't want have to keep track of tasks somewhere else.

I'm looking forward to the EU forcing companies to allow more integrations.

thrillgore• 3 years ago

Typical Google

htrp• 3 years ago

List of items being removed... instead of being nested under the announcement

* Playing and controlling audiobooks on Google Play Books with your voice. You can still cast audiobooks from your mobile device.

* Setting or using media alarms, music alarms, or radio alarms on Google Assistant enabled devices. You can create a custom Routine that has similar behavior or use a standard alarm.

* Accessing or managing your cookbook, transfering recipes from device to device, playing an instructional recipe video, or showing step-by-step recipes. You can use Google Assistant to search for recipes across the web and YouTube.

* Managing a stopwatch on Smart Displays and Speakers. You can still set timers and alarms.

* Using your voice to call a device or broadcast a message to your Google Family Group. You can still broadcast to devices in your home.

* Using your voice to send an email, video or audio message. You can still make calls and send text messages.

* Rescheduling an event in Google Calendar with your voice. You can still schedule a new event.

* Using App Launcher in Google Assistant driving mode on Google Maps to read and send messages, make calls, and control media. You can still use voice control on Google Maps the same way.

* Asking to schedule or hear previously scheduled Family Bell announcements. You can create a custom Routine that has similar behavior.

* Asking to meditate with Calm. You can still ask for meditation options with media providers such as YouTube.

* Voice control for activities will no longer be available on Fitbit Sense and Versa 3 devices. You'll need to use the buttons on your device to start, stop, pause, and resume activities. You can still voice control activities on Pixel Watches.

* Viewing your sleep summaries will only be available on Google Smart Displays. You can still ask for sleep details by voice on third-party smart clocks.

* Calls made from speakers and Smart Displays will not show up with a caller ID unless you’re using Duo.

* Viewing the ambient “Commute to Work” time estimates on Smart Displays. You can still ask for commute times and get directions by voice.

* Checking personal travel itineraries by voice. You can still ask for flight status.

* Asking for information about your contacts. You can still make calls to your contacts.

* Asking to take certain actions by voice, such as send a payment, make a reservation, or post to social media. You can still ask Assistant to open your installed apps.

nickcw• 3 years ago

I read the title of this and thought - yes - at last - Google are going to be integrating LLM capabilities with Google Assistant to make it really really useful instead of occasionally useful with a side helping of frustration at how little it understands.

Instead this seems to be a list of useful features that are being taken away!

I'm disappointed. Google employ some of the best AI/ML engineers in the world and they are making assistant worse rather than making it a showcase for what LLMs can do.

crimsoneer• 3 years ago

Agreed, this is so mystifying. Google Assistant is such an obvious use case.

ygjb• 3 years ago

The problem is that the current crop of google assistant devices (excluding current and upcoming gen cell phones) are woefully underpowered for local models, meaning that supporting the existing install base will be expensive.

I expect that a new assistant like product (Google Bard Home or something) will be announced and existing Assistant/Home devices will be deprecated.

operatingthetan• 3 years ago

https://blog.google/products/assistant/google-assistant-bard...

Was announced in October, but haven't seen anything about it since.

kotaKat• 3 years ago

Sounds like Google's making a bunch of anti-competitive moves by stripping out loads of third party support from Assistant.

Makes you think.

yjftsjthsd-h• 3 years ago

So perhaps it's a good day to call for contributors to add more actions to https://github.com/Stypox/dicio-android ? If Google wants to remove features, they can be replaced by something that doesn't have that problem.

ryandvm• 3 years ago

Glad they're making changes because it couldn't possibly be worse.

It is one of the few products I use daily that gets noticeably worse over time. Shopping lists, calendars, reminders, timers, etc use to work pretty well, but now they're absolute trash. There's a running joke in our house that one of us will ask the Google Home speaker something, it responds with either "I don't know", "I can't do that", or some bizarre non-sequitur and then we say, "just ask ChatGPT".

esafak6• 3 years ago

On a good day, when it asks me for feedback I tell it to fire the person in charge. On less charitable days I throw in the rest of the team.

password4321• 3 years ago

From what I read it sounds like your plan is working!

kleiba• 3 years ago

I went into AI almost 30 years ago because I wanted to be part of building a science-fiction future where you could talk to your device just like in the movies. Now that we're almost there, I wouldn't touch a cloud-based speech interface with a ten foot pole -- had I foreseen that my sci-fi future included giving all my private information (like, say, what my voice sounds like) to a face-less billion dollar global corporation, I would have saved my time.

Terr_2• 3 years ago

I want to see a personal AI revolution to echo the Personal Computer revolution.

Tools that people own-- capital, almost--that work for individual own best-interests.

toyg2• 3 years ago

It's never going to happen.

The Personal Computer revolution was made possible by economies of scale in industrial manufacturing of relatively simple components. Companies made money by selling widgets to as many people as possible.

By definition, AI is only made possible by advances in massive computation capacity, which is easier to achieve and improve with centralized models. This is always going to be the realm of Big Money.

In a way, AI epitomizes the shift from XX-century economics, based on manufacturing, to a XXI-century version based on extracting rent from networked digital subjects.

leviathant• 3 years ago

I think because I have Google Fi, I kept getting Google Home products. We've got a couple of the little speakers, and a couple of the little Nest hubs. I bought a pair of Nest Home Max speakers when they were blowing them out, because people said they sounded good - they do!

All this is to say I'm fairly late to the voice assistant party. At some point my wife and I decided to give it a good try. Read up on best practices. Figured it'd been something that had been in market a good long time, maybe by now the kinks were worked out.

The search results were hit or miss. It was not clear where tasks were being saved to.

So for the last few years, here are the voice commands we've used:

ok google, what's the weather today

ok google, play white noise

ok google, stop

...and every now and then, we ask it to search for info on a topic and it fails comically. I'm not surprised to see a big shift here.

Oooh. On my Pixel, I do use "OK Google, Turn off the flashlight" - that IS helpful.

twisteriffic3• 3 years ago

What's your success rate on white noise? I'm down in the 50s with no earthly idea of why. I get white stripes and random death metal with great regularity.

nemothekid• 3 years ago

You'd think with all the noise about how awful Siri is you would see Google crushing voice integrations as a top 3 advantage. Now I'm left wondering if the reason Apple has abandoned Siri and Homepod is because they are fundamentally flawed products.

wavemode• 3 years ago

Assistant has lived just a little too long. Google's hands are starting to enclose around its neck.

kevin_thibedeau2• 3 years ago

Google Concierge is waiting for it's day in the sun.

ChilledTonic• 3 years ago

I was watching a friend use Siri the other day (I've never used an iPhone) and I was blown away by how much it could accomplish in comparison to Google Assistant. He said he used Siri as the default way of interfacing with his phone, which I found interesting.

Reading this list of removals, especially the removal of CALLER ID, on video calls no less, an insane choice - how much could that possibily cost to maintain? - I'm honestly wondering if they're actively trying to drive people into Apple's ecosystem.

Nevertheless I'll never buy a Google product as long as I live. How can I trust them not to completely mothball every useful feature I bought it for?

dvngnt_• 3 years ago

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

reportingsjr• 3 years ago

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

ksjskskskkk4• 3 years ago

mkbhd entire income is from YouTube. i won't elaborate.

pprotas• 3 years ago

If Siri is better than Google Assistant these days… that says more about how bad GA is, not how good Siri is. I say this as an owner of two HomePod Minis

BonoboIO• 3 years ago

I found this on the web for you

SparkyMcUnicorn2• 3 years ago

Siri is good enough to get by, but is definitely not better than Google in my opinion (and several friends that have both Google Nest and Apple HomePod devices).

Siri is sorry she can't help, misunderstands things, or straight up ignores requests way too often.

I will say that the non-display Google devices are often more helpful than the ones with displays. The displays want to show you stuff, but the non-displays will tend to give you an answer.

e.g. "what time does walmart close" will respond with "there are several stores in your area" and then show you a list of stores with their hours, but the non-display devices will just reference the closest store and tell you when it closes.

duffyjp• 3 years ago

Siri must not like me, she never does what I want.

"Hey Siri, turn off my alarm" (ignores me)

"Hey Siri, I'm going to buy an Android" (turns off alarm, refuses to elaborate)

fragmede2• 3 years ago

My favorite problem is "Hey Siri, navigate home" proceeds to open navigation and send me to a place that isn't my home. I can up open maps manually and click on "home" and it works totally fine, but for some reason, Siri finds a place called "home" that isn't actually my home to send me to.

pottertheotter• 3 years ago

Can you give some examples of how your friend used Siri? I feel like I don't use it enough.

seatac76• 3 years ago

Siri is objectively worse in almost every way imaginable. I find that hard to believe. I have both an iPhone and a work Pixel Pro, the difference between them is night and day. Siri can’t get basic spelling right, let alone accomplish complex tasks. To date it does not hold context at all, GA is far better in that regard.

MKBHD Comparison:https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2MGqmuEdtU

Somewhat old but still holds true imho.

tlogan2• 3 years ago

I believe Google is heading in the wrong direction with their current approach. In my opinion, integrating LLMs and add function calling would be a significant improvement. This integration would enable the assistant to perform more complex and integrated tasks, and facilitate more meaningful conversations. Especially in scenarios where the user’s request isn’t clear or it’s uncertain which application to invoke and how, this advanced interaction capability could be incredibly beneficial.

notatoad• 3 years ago

In my opinion, integrating LLMs and add function calling would be a significant improvement

i'm sure this is where they're headed. but what announcement reads as to me is some clever PM at google realized they don't want to announce a new LLM update to the assistant and have to include all the functionality it loses in that same announcment. so they're taking the functionality away now, and in six months they can announce a new assistant that has feature parity with the "old one"

binkHN• 3 years ago

The enshittification of everything. These are not just "changes," this is them removing functionality and replacing it with nothing.

bilalq• 3 years ago

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 anymore. You used to just be able to search for "my flights" on Google and it'd tell you about you about your upcoming flights.

leros• 3 years ago

The old Google Now feed was amazing. Showed me where my car is parked. Told me when to leave to arrive places in time. Pulled up my flight details automatically. Now it's just a bunch of click bait articles.

verelo2• 3 years ago

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.

rezonant• 3 years ago

It was fantastic. It's worth noting that Pixel's At a Glance does still tell you when to leave (and you get a notification), but as far as I can tell, the parking features are completely gone.

That being said, I no longer have any clue what features exist in Google's ecosystem because their A/B and feature flag rollout system is so fundamentally broken and misused by the product teams that some features literally never arrive for some users until they factory reset their devices, and suddenly they get a fresh set of feature flags. I am still waiting on just about all of the new RCS features Google announced months ago, and just yesterday I spent a bunch of time trying to figure out why my partner's devices never received cross device timers while all of my devices do. That feature was launched in May of last year. My partner does a lot of the cooking, and our kitchen Nest Hub usually handles the timers. But only my phone and tablet receive it's timer status...

I say misused above, because it strongly appears that they announce features before completion and then use an extremely shallow rollout to finish the features with the cover of "finding bugs". Is it actually released if the only Google accounts that receive the flags are the dev and product team members?

Google, you've perverted a fantastic engineering practice into a broken mess that reduces your user's confidence in your product and breeds confusion that hurts your brand.

gretch• 3 years ago

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...

fsmv2• 3 years ago

The new DMA law prevents combining data across products

progbits• 3 years ago

Also, some companies stopped including the essential data in the email itself, eg. eshops won't list the products or tracking numbers directly in the order confirmation email, but only link to their website where gmail can't extract it. I think I've seen some airlines do the same, though most do include a boarding pass attachment.

0xcafefood3• 3 years ago

Does it prevent it? I thought it just required explicit consent from users.

gerash2• 3 years ago

Really? If so, then Google should only apply it to European users and not the entire world

PopePompus• 3 years ago

Yes, Siri was initially amazing, but it never improved significantly. Several years ago Google's voice assistant was much better than Siri, but it has degraded enough now that it's roughly on a par with Siri. But however disappointing Google Assistant is now, it's better than it will be tomorrow.

bogomipz2• 3 years ago

"Yes, Siri was initially amazing, but it never improved significantly."

I feel like the same can be said for Auto-Correct, also from about the same era. How is it that with all of the edge processing it's still the same old miserable experience? It seemed to me that it actually got worse.

emmelaich• 3 years ago

So what happened? Google Assistant was pretty cool and a groundbreaker. Then ... nothing happened for years, until ChatGPT gave them a kick.

Maybe it was all the kerfuffle about AI ethics that nobbled them for a while.

lxgr3• 3 years ago

I wish they'd spend some of that energy on exploring the ethics of neglecting and abandoning products that people spend time and energy on, integrating them into their homes and workflows.

foooorsyth• 3 years ago

Software has to be maintained. Nobody wants to do maintenance of their own works — it doesn’t look like a new accomplishment in a performance cycle. Nobody wants to inherit maintenance work. Google’s perf cycle directly causes its graveyard issues.

015a• 3 years ago

I feel its genuinely important to not dismiss this valid observation, and recognize it as actually something that is happening. Its not just Google, and I think Johnathan Blow captures the trend really well in this talk [1].

Both the doomers and e/accs can be wrong. "Today is the worst that AI will be" isn't a foregone conclusion. There aren't many domains of software that haven't degraded in quality, and even functionality, if at least a little bit; and there is no evidence that the same won't happen to AI. Technologists say AGI will happen; but why this happens is really outside the hands of the technologists, somewhat more in the hands of the capitalists, but really outside of anyone's hands and in the capitalist system itself; it can't be stopped.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSRHeXYDLko

mrtksn• 3 years ago

Maybe they did A/B testing and found out that it reduces the revenue when it’s populated with everything you need? Maybe you end up using the phone less?

resolutebat• 3 years ago

I've had a Google Home for close to ten years and I don't think I've ever used a single one of these features.

Then again, 99% of my Assistant use is kitchen timers and Spotify, and I systematically disable it on my phones. My kids are still salty about Song Quiz going away last year though.

iteratethis• 3 years ago

"We're doing cost cuts and layoffs and here's why this is great for you".

beembeem• 3 years ago

Yep. So much double-speak and lying through the teeth here. The audacity to mention "we're investing in assistant" in an announcement about how they are decidedly de-investing is rich.

summerlight• 3 years ago

https://www.semafor.com/article/01/10/2024/google-lays-off-h...

Note that there has been a significant layoff days ago in the assistant team to "improve Google Assistant as it explores integrating newer artificial intelligence technology into its products". Probably they're trying to replace the backend for the assistant with some LMM-based models and see those functionalities are the blockers? Of course, this could be (and should be IMO) done in more gradual migrations rather than this sudden deprecation, but who knows what those execs have in their mind.

0xcafefood3• 3 years ago

who knows what those execs have in their mind.

If I understand Google culture correctly, "promo" is the answer.

_dain_2• 3 years ago

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?

post_break• 3 years ago

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

croisillon• 3 years ago

s.o. and i both own iphones but never talk to siri. recently we spent a week at an airbnb with an alexa thing so we used it for music and couple more stuff, it was sometimes good, other times so bad it was funny

anyway, we came back home and still don't use siri

jurassicfoxy• 3 years ago

I definitely exist in a bubble, but it's especially useful while driving. Or for searches "Hey Siri, what is the capital of Zambia?" is faster than typing it, and you don't even need to reach for your phone. (Of course Siri is awful and can barely do basic things.)

We use it quite a lot.

Noumenon722• 3 years ago

It's just faster to say "OK Google, navigate to work" than pulling out a keyboard and opening apps. Even though for some reason I still can't time when Google is going to start listening after all these years, and have to repeat myself a lot. I think it was fine-tuned for American voices at first and got worse when expanded worldwide.

_dain_2• 3 years ago

why don't you know the way to work?

rossjudson• 3 years ago

Although I hate my Audi Q7, one thing I do like is that you can hold the voice command button on the steering wheel and tell android auto what you want to do (like go home, or play your music of choice).

Simple things through voice are good, and a lot better than fiddling with your phone while you're trying to drive.

pneumic• 3 years ago

All the time:

"Text $WIFE_NAME I'm on my way home"

"Directions to $DESTINATION"

"[Set a] Timer [for] 15 minutes"

"Call $CONTACT" or "Call $PLACE"

etc.

These are usually done while I'm driving or on the move, or otherwise don't feel like scrunching up my thumbs to type or to look at a screen

NoboruWataya• 3 years ago

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.

drdaeman• 3 years ago

That's modern large corporate PR for you - they can stop any kind of service and remove any features and the PR department will release that happy post parading it as a giant leap forward. What's bad is that people are so used to it nobody barely rises an eyebrow.

nineteen999• 3 years ago

How about you remove the popup prompt to turn on Google Assistant EVERY TIME I connect my Bluetooth earphones? It's turned off for a reason.

shooker435• 3 years ago

This is what makes me skeptical of ever buying a Volvo or other car with Google Assistant built in.

aristus• 3 years ago

Something that's kinda funny but baffling to me is the unspoken assumption that a UI with voice input should also default to voice output.

That's not how two humans work on command / response tasks, say, hanging pictures. You say, "a finger to the left and up" and I move the picture. Silent UI feedback is a curiously unplumbed idea.

Or another one: if you sit at a restaurant and ask the menu, would you rather they tediously recite it? Or hand you a paper menu while maybe giving a couple tips like "the fish pasta is awesome today"?

jdthedisciple• 3 years ago

How do you get feedback then?

Supposedly, when you are voice commanding, you do so because you are unable to look at the device and visually confirm that the correct action is being undertaken.

Yhippa• 3 years ago

Viewing the ambient “Commute to Work” time estimates on Smart Displays. You can still ask for commute times and get directions by voice.

They're going to take this little piece of convenience for me that I always use. Sad :-(

stronglikedan• 3 years ago

Wow, Bixby will finally be more useful than GA! Good job, Google! Bye!

no_streams• 3 years ago

Have any open-source voice assistants reached a half-usable state?

vzaliva• 3 years ago

"Using your voice to send an email" - how's that not useful?! E.g. running late for a meeting and send a quick email from your car.

BeetleB2• 3 years ago

I bought Google Home/speakers in 2018 and still use them.

Since I bought them, there have been almost 0 improvements that I've seen. A lot of potential gone to waste. That they're sunsetting features is not a surprise.

I don't know if Alexa is better, but I always tell my friends to buy those instead of Google Homes.

dmonitor• 3 years ago

it’s at least a decent wifi speaker for casting spotify or whatever

BeetleB2• 3 years ago

That it has some good qualities is why I still haven't put them in the trash. My point is they've let it rot all these years. And the potential for cool applications is huge.

gerash2• 3 years ago

When Amazon echo came out, all the flaws of voice assistant were visible and it looked like a glorified kitchen timer but it's surprising how little they improved over the years. Nonetheless Google executives rushed to copy Alexa.

At the same time the same executives did not incorporate LLMs into the Assistant when Google invented the tech.

These layoffs should've fired all those dead-weight executives and the CEO for good measure yet we see the rank and file losing their job

jinushaun• 3 years ago

That’s why I find the big tech pivot to AI so frustrating. There’s more to AI than LLM and Google and others had all the time in the world to make that. It took someone like OpenAI to show them the error of their ways.

Reminds me of legacy mobile phone makers when the iPhone launched.

calamari4065• 3 years ago

Modern Google is so boringly, predictably shitty.

cheriot• 3 years ago

The algorithm hype cycle keeps on turning. Voice assistants, self driving cars, and now LLMs. Each one represents an advancement, but nothing to justify the hopes and dreams people expect them to solve any minute now.

Every major company has been working on an AI assistant for the past year. Have any of them launched something useful?

dcchambers• 3 years ago

Actually bummed about this...I use Google assistant triggered via the Google search bar mic button on my phone all the time to manage smart home things.

kurts_mustache• 3 years ago

It's frustrating to see these updates that feel like a step back rather than an improvement. Why remove useful features and irritate your users? Guess this lets Google lay off more workers who were working on these.

Amigo5862• 3 years ago

Not that I use voice assistants very regularly, but I decided they've become completely useless after Christmas when I was driving back home and had this (almost-verbatim) exchange with my Android around 11am:

Hey Google, remind me when I'm home to ...

"I can't remind you at a place" - pretty sure it used to be able to???

Hey Google, remind me tomorrow to ...

"Ok, what time do you want me to remind you tomorrow?"

Noon

"Ok, I'll remind you at noon today"

???????????????????????????

wly_cdgr• 3 years ago

Let me guess, you're making it even more crap than it already is

It's like when you get the "we're updating our privacy policy" email

steelframe2• 3 years ago

I once interviewed someone working in the Google Assistant org. His job was to build technology that would detect "unusual sounds" that the microphone picks up while awaiting a "Hey Google" prompt.

I went home from that interview and threw my Google Home device in the trash.

geor9e• 3 years ago

Alexa does that too. It's the same offline wake sound model that processes Alexa and Hey Google. There's a list you can assign to do stuff (send you a notification or turn on a light or whatever)

dog barking, baby crying, snoring, glass shattering, smoke alarm beeping, co2 alarm beeping, appliance beeping, running water

Rebelgecko• 3 years ago

Are you talking about the (opt in) accessibility feature where you can get visual notifications when your doorbell rings and things like that?

steelframe2• 3 years ago

Based on what I learned in that interview, there are more classifications of sounds that the product detects. Only a subset of those classifications are surfaced to the customer as part of the product.

londons_explore• 3 years ago

Why are all these assistants a bunch of rigid regexes and canned responses rather than just a frontend to a language model that can do/say anything?

It feels like 2010's tech that couldn't keep up.

Kwpolska• 3 years ago

Some of those removed features are quite bizarre.

Managing a stopwatch on Smart Displays and Speakers. You can still set timers and alarms.

You already have a clock app, probably based on the standard Android one, and how many commands are for stopwatches?

Using your voice to send an email, video or audio message. You can still make calls and send text messages.

What’s the big difference between sending a text message to a phone number via the messaging app, and sending an email via the Gmail app? It’s probably a single API call with a few parameters.

Rescheduling an event in Google Calendar with your voice. You can still schedule a new event.
Calls made from speakers and Smart Displays will not show up with a caller ID unless you’re using Duo.

albert_e• 3 years ago

And here I was a few months ago, looking at the rise of Large Language Models and ...

expecting a resurgence of all these natural language assistants.

I was expecting to see the effectiveness of these assistants go through a step change for the better, and use cases exploding.

Expected the established players like Google and Amazon being able to finally justify building so many of them and selling them cheap with and uncertain pay-off all these years.

Alas!

jasonvorhe• 3 years ago

I completely disabled Google Assistant on my Pixel 7 and I've ripped out all Google Home hardware and I haven't missed any of it for a minute.

rabbits_2002• 3 years ago

Google is a horrible company

Changes we're making to Google Assistant

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