Apple Music is coming to Echo devices in the coming weeks

[leebase]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I actually think that between Apple, Google and Amazon, Google is in the most jeopardy of losing their place which is basically being the ad king. That's where most of their profit is.

Point, counter point....all in fun....to wit:

Google needs data, the more the better. Google mines the data to improve it's add targeting. All by itself, without any "make money when someone purchaes via Google Home" or "sell the Google Home for enough money to make a profit"....Google gets what it wants, which is more data.

Google has already developed Google Assistant for Android devices, so it's not much of an extension to go after the lady-in-a-can. Google's problem SELLING the things (compared to Amazon) is that nobody is shopping every day on "Google Mall" the way they do Amazon. Google needs to buy adds...tv adds and the like to get it's product out. And Goolge has to work via retailers as Amazon isn't about to sell Google's lady-in-a-can products.

But Google has the best and most mature AI (or at least has the reputation of having such). Google's pace of innovation will be hard to keep up with in the AI arena. I'm still waiting for Apple to drop the other shoe with some heretofore unannounced break through in AI. For now, Apple's Siri isn't even designed to be stand alone, deliver answers by voice. Apple has added Shortcuts which should greatly help Siri adoption, but that's going to take time for normally people to really grasp the possibilities.

Amazon has so little to offer - IMHO. Even though I have 3 of it's wee beasties. They don't integrate with my google Calendar, they don't integrate with my iPhone calendar. I shop at Amazon, buy ebooks from Amazon, watch Prime Movies on my Amazon FireTv stick....but I don't use any Amazon service that will benefit from voice the way maps, email, calendering etc. would.

My echo is a wonderful Kitchen multi-timer. Worth the $29 price (I always buy during black friday promotions) for that alone. And I've begun using my Fire Tv Cube with Alexa connected to my soundbar/sub woofer to listen to music in my living room (my HomePod is in my bedroom).

But that's me, I know other people LOVE Alexa.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by leebase

Point, counter point....all in fun....to wit:

Google needs data, the more the better. Google mines the data to improve it's add targeting. All by itself, without any "make money when someone purchaes via Google Home" or "sell the Google Home for enough money to make a profit"....Google gets what it wants, which is more data.

Google has already developed Google Assistant for Android devices, so it's not much of an extension to go after the lady-in-a-can. Google's problem SELLING the things (compared to Amazon) is that nobody is shopping every day on "Google Mall" the way they do Amazon. Google needs to buy adds...tv adds and the like to get it's product out. And Goolge has to work via retailers as Amazon isn't about to sell Google's lady-in-a-can products.

But Google has the best and most mature AI (or at least has the reputation of having such). Google's pace of innovation will be hard to keep up with in the AI arena. I'm still waiting for Apple to drop the other shoe with some heretofore unannounced break through in AI. For now, Apple's Siri isn't even designed to be stand alone, deliver answers by voice. Apple has added Shortcuts which should greatly help Siri adoption, but that's going to take time for normally people to really grasp the possibilities.

Amazon has so little to offer - IMHO. Even though I have 3 of it's wee beasties. They don't integrate with my google Calendar, they don't integrate with my iPhone calendar. I shop at Amazon, buy ebooks from Amazon, watch Prime Movies on my Amazon FireTv stick....but I don't use any Amazon service that will benefit from voice the way maps, email, calendering etc. would.

My echo is a wonderful Kitchen multi-timer. Worth the $29 price (I always buy during black friday promotions) for that alone. And I've begun using my Fire Tv Cube with Alexa connected to my soundbar/sub woofer to listen to music in my living room (my HomePod is in my bedroom).

But that's me, I know other people LOVE Alexa.

Are you sure about the calendars? My Google calendar is integrated with my Echo, and from looking at the settings, if I had an iCloud calendar, I could connect that, as well.

Shari

[stumped]

for google calendars- you have to set up voice recognition via the app for in google home- the calendar info is only given up to the person whose voice matches
photos work the same way if you have a with screen device. I can now ask for stuff from my google photos, hey google show me photos of[time, place, event ] but anyone else just gets generic image search results
to make hand free phone calls via google home also need to recognise your voice, before you can say hey google call xxx. then they youse your contacts to match phone number to names. it works, and it is free .btu there seems ot be a lag with VOIP which you have to get used to , compared to cell calls
PS setting up voice for husband and wife is a pain. you both have to install the home app on your own phones, then do it while the relevant account is selected in the app. google links voice to google account then links that to device and sasy the co voice files are stored only on device.
NB if you add an account to the google home app, it also gets added to gmail, so I cant have my wife's account in my google home app without getting her email
also, because google home creates a " HOME" - alisg of allowed people, then I have to invite here to join my home, and she has to accept, before we can get both voices recognised. invite, accept can only be done via the home app, not simply via gmail. google could have done this ( make it easy to set up 2 voices) better. i spent ages on google chat learning how to go it

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by leebase

Point, counter point....all in fun....to wit:

Google needs data, the more the better. Google mines the data to improve it's add targeting. All by itself, without any "make money when someone purchaes via Google Home" or "sell the Google Home for enough money to make a profit"....Google gets what it wants, which is more data.

Google has already developed Google Assistant for Android devices, so it's not much of an extension to go after the lady-in-a-can. Google's problem SELLING the things (compared to Amazon) is that nobody is shopping every day on "Google Mall" the way they do Amazon. Google needs to buy adds...tv adds and the like to get it's product out. And Goolge has to work via retailers as Amazon isn't about to sell Google's lady-in-a-can products.

But Google has the best and most mature AI (or at least has the reputation of having such). Google's pace of innovation will be hard to keep up with in the AI arena. I'm still waiting for Apple to drop the other shoe with some heretofore unannounced break through in AI. For now, Apple's Siri isn't even designed to be stand alone, deliver answers by voice. Apple has added Shortcuts which should greatly help Siri adoption, but that's going to take time for normally people to really grasp the possibilities.

Amazon has so little to offer - IMHO. Even though I have 3 of it's wee beasties. They don't integrate with my google Calendar, they don't integrate with my iPhone calendar. I shop at Amazon, buy ebooks from Amazon, watch Prime Movies on my Amazon FireTv stick....but I don't use any Amazon service that will benefit from voice the way maps, email, calendering etc. would.

My echo is a wonderful Kitchen multi-timer. Worth the $29 price (I always buy during black friday promotions) for that alone. And I've begun using my Fire Tv Cube with Alexa connected to my soundbar/sub woofer to listen to music in my living room (my HomePod is in my bedroom).

But that's me, I know other people LOVE Alexa.

Google has changed their company culture a lot and are starting to lose the people who drove all that innovation. A lot of that innovation was driven by Friday projects and Friday projects are a thing of the past. I have a friend who just retired from the middle ranks of Google and it's been interesting listen to him talk about how Google has changed over the years.

I don't think they are going to die overnight or anything, but having a company based on mining customer data has some pretty major regulatory risks. Neither Amazon nor Apple have that level of risk to their primary business model, IMPO.