I just got an alert from Google, with a 'Meow Movie' of my cat photos and I'm in love lol
This has become a nearly routine post of mine, but I just love everything Google is doing from a software and services standpoint. There's so much they have implemented that makes me smile. The Pixel feels far more personal to me than my iPhone ever did. It actually helps me get where I'm going quicker, or assist me with questions or reminder throughout the day. I'm actively engaging with my Pixel, Home, Home Mini and Pixelbook on a daily basis, and that includes using the assistant on each one. I don't remember ever having this much enjoyment out of the iOS/Mac ecosystem.
I didn't realize it before, but Apple really never hit home for me on the human touch. I feel like Google has that, and it's only going to get better. There's so many little things on a daily basis that give me that feeling. That feeling that it can relate to me and what I need or want out of it. In retrospect, Apple/Siri just feels sort of cold and unrelatable, like they don't know what I need or want, and don't care.
It's a good feeling.
Our home now is a mix of Alexa and Google. I have two Google Home minis and the white one is set up in the kitchen and the coral colored one will be the one we take when we go on vacation. It will be convenient to have a voice assistant on holiday with us, especially with my in laws traveling along and now used to asking Alexa/Spotify to play songs for them.
Of the two, Alexa is the more personable, but both are very helpful.
Siri was clearly not designed with the idea of providing full hands free assistance in mind. So many of Siri’s responses require you to consult your phone for a visual response to questions. I hope now that Apple wants to sell us on the Home Pod that they have further developed Siri’s capabilities.
I once very much enjoyed interacting with Siri but gradually, to the point I can’t pinpoint exactly when it happened, something changed and it became exceedingly difficult to communicate with her. She would try to execute a response before I had finished speaking or she would cut me off or there would be a huge delay between when she started listening and when I said “Hey Siri”. So the result would be she didn’t catch the first few words I said to her.
And she overall acts very hard of hearing and senile much of the time. It’s actually a bit sad, because it parallels what I’m going through with my mother. It’s kind of a constant reminder of the challenges I’m dealing with when I am trying to help my mom.
Siri didn’t used to work so poorly for me, so I used to use her daily. I can not understand how Apple actually let her decline. I can understand stagnation but I can’t forgive decline of the kind I’ve experienced using Siri. I don’t mind that she’s lacking Alexa’s charm and personality but I am frustrated at how fractured our ability to communicate on the most basic level has become.
In other news my Touch ID on my IPhone 8 Plus stopped working for two days. None of my prints were unlocking Apple Pay or the phone itself consistently. Then this morning they started working again. My prints worked fine on the Pixel 2 all this time, so I don’t know what’s going on.
