Siri vs. Google Now

[b166er]

Google Now is awesome. I don't use it much on my Nexus 7 because I don't usually take that thing out of the house. But if/when I get an Android phone (probably the S4) I can see myself using it a lot.

Siri is very useful. It has it's strong points for sure. But I do think Google Now packs more of a punch and has no gimmick factor.

 

[Hail Caesar]

Never used Google Now, but I do use Siri quite often and don't really have many issues. I am sure Apple will continue to improve the service.

 

[thehustleman]

Siri has better natural voice recognition, but Google Now is a better "assistant", in my opinion, in that it does more for you without having to ask.

I disagree, I've found them to be the opposite.

SIRI almost never catches what I say, I even game accents and Google now catches it.

 

[Dr McKay]

I could never get siri to understand me, Google Now understands me perfectly.

 

[Vegastouch]

Siri has better natural voice recognition, but Google Now is a better "assistant", in my opinion, in that it does more for you without having to ask.

I hear all the time that Siri doesnt recognise things they are saying to it. My Sister hates it and would rather type it in instead of ask. She says it's more annoying than helpful.

 

[streetfoldsfive]

I hear all the time that Siri doesnt recognise things they are saying to it. My Sister hates it and would rather type it in instead of ask. She says it's more annoying than helpful.

Having used an iphone 5 since launch day and getting rid of it for the note II and using a nexus 7 since august i have to say google now understands me all the time. Siri worked well most of the time but enough time's to notice it would make stuff up that werent even close to my speech.

 

[Vegastouch]

I too have never seen this work, I did not have my Amazon linked to my G Mail address though, I have switched and will see if that works.

The football scores never showed for me either, or maybe, it just didnt like Leeds United.

Scores show up for me but i added my teams thru GN in the settings. I dont have everything turned on for it and i also dont have Amazon connected thru Gmail.

 

[maxosx]

Apple doesn't sell that data though. To me...that's the difference.

Don't be so certain. There's no halo over the top executives at Apple.

We ALL know how much Apple values every dollar they can grab and deposit off-shore

 

[SomeDudeAsking]

Apple doesn't sell that data though. To me...that's the difference.

Apple does sell your data to iAd advertisers. Why do you think Apple is harvesting all your location data by default?

 

[streetfoldsfive]

Don't be so certain. There's no halo over the top executives at Apple.

We ALL know how much Apple values every dollar they can grab and deposit off-shore

Don't forget when they supported SOPA for awhile

 

[daveathall]

Scores show up for me but i added my teams thru GN in the settings. I dont have everything turned on for it and i also dont have Amazon connected thru Gmail.

Thankyou, I've just done that through GN, I'm of the opinion that some of the services are US based at the moment, although it predicted my team (not a top flight team either) when entering it, it couldn't find the England international football (soccer) and cricket teams though. It took a while for some services (eg Google music) to travel accross the Atlantic but well worth the wait.

 

[tensiondeadache]

I think Google Now definitely has better voice recognition, though today I was driving to LAX and tried to say "drive to 6075 Avion Drive" and it couldn't get it after four tries.

The cards are cool, but not perfect. I'm in Los Angeles, and because three weeks ago I searched/navigated to 6075 Sunset Blvd, it randomly throws up cards with that address when it sees I'm leaving Long Beach and entering south LA. Get a little bit more timely and accurate guys...

Once I was in Whole Foods, and it threw up a card that said "hey your in Whole Foods, want to scan items to compare" and the link to the scanner never did work. It definitely feels more powerful than Siri, but Siri is also very useful if you actually try to learn its potential and use it.

I'll never forget the time I was driving through Palm Desert to a Dodger game and realized my tire was about blowout. I pulled off the freeway, in a panic said to Siri "I have a flat tire" and it smoothly brought up the phone number for a place less than a mile away! That's what "personal assistant" really means.

 

[mattopotamus]

The major difference with dialect is that you to really enunciate everything you say with siri, with google now you can just talk as if you were having a conversation.

 

[RetepNamenots]

Of course I'm being sarcastic.... How can it tell me what I want to know without talking to it?

It looks at your current/past web history on both your phone and computers (if you've used Google when signed into your account). I've never told Google Now my addresses (work or home), or what teams I support, it just figures them out automatically.

 

[ugahairydawgs]

Apple does sell your data to iAd advertisers. Why do you think Apple is harvesting all your location data by default?

IMO....there's a difference.

Google is scrubbing e-mail, web history, location data (not to mention building a full fledged online profile on you) and using that to target ads.

Apple is using iTunes Store activity for the targeting, anonymizing it, and giving you the option in the Settings to opt out.

Like I said earlier....to each his own. Some (read: many) people are fine with what Google is doing and seem to think the price you pay for their services is not too steep. I just happen to not be one of those people. Doesn't make either of us "right" or "wrong"....just means we solve the value calculus of this a little different.

 

[craftytony]

For me Siri works wonderfully. I rarely have problems with her understanding me, even when I have the radio on or my kid yelling in the background lol. And I love how great she is at understanding natural language. So nice to just say "take me home" "call my wife" "remind me to...."when I leave or arrive at a certain location, "buy tickets for..."a movie, or "make a reservation for me at..."restaurant.

Dictation also works great although it can be slow if I speak more than a few sentences before giving it a "break" lol

My sister in law bought an S3 and I was trying to use the voice assistant on it over the weekend. I'm assuming it wasn't Google Now as it was not very good at all. It kept asking us to say "hello something or other" to begin and would take 2-4 tries for it to understand anything we said (3 of us trying multiple times)

 

[sentinelsx]

Google now could be immensely more powerful once a) it starts plugging into apps and b) it gets more battery optimized, currently i turn it off if i have a jellybean device.

As for the plugging into apps thing, let me elaborate. It routinely pulls up cards with directions and times to my work and home along with transit schedules. That is cool until i realize it is not reliable because their data is taken from the transit agency database and depending on that means you will almost always be late...

So i ended up using one of the dedicated real time GPS transit apps that can track trains and buses and tell me exactly when to board, and when to expect it to reach a certain point.

I would like google now to be able to extract data from such apps.

Good thing is this way both google now and third party apps can co-exist instead of simply killing the app. I know most android power users want their OS to do everything, but that is such a stretch. Probably one of the reasons too that many developers don't care to put the app on play as who is going to use it over the OS offering? No matter how good or bad it is.

 

[jrswizzle]

It looks at your current/past web history on both your phone and computers (if you've used Google when signed into your account). I've never told Google Now my addresses (work or home), or what teams I support, it just figures them out automatically.

Ya but see that leaves a LOT of room for error....

It didn't figure out ANY of the teams I liked - I had to configure them myself, and it had my home address wrong, which I fixed myself.

Google Now doesn't really do anything for me....it shows me the commute time from home to work....on a route I don't take because I KNOW there will be traffic in the morning....I have other apps that show better sports info - the initial setup is nothing (especially when I had to set it up on Google now as well)....I really don't see the perks of Google Now.

I use Siri, mostly to set reminders on my To-Do list....occasionally I'll tell her to take me somewhere (home, my church group leaders' house, the nearest 24 hour fitness), text someone while I'm driving, and it works just fine.....doesn't get it 100% right all the time, but its successful more often than not.

 

[sentinelsx]

It didn't figure out ANY of the teams I liked - I had to configure them myself

At least it recognizes your sport. I can't get my cricket scores, ball by ball analysis etc show up as it is not even the sport it supports, and so the sports functionality goes down the drain for me if I cannot manage my favorite sports.

Right now it is just a start, a minor teaser of what it can do once mature. People saying "it is the greatest thing" must be impressed easily because google now has tons of room to expand.

As for Siri, it is ok for being a dumb assistant which does what I command, but nothing much impressive to me and I have turned that off too on my iPhone.

 

[TaylorMatsu]

When you test Google Now vs Siri side you can see the difference in voice recognition. Google Now has been a better experience for me than Siri, I've owned devices with both. I find myself repeating things 3-4 times and then giving up and just googling it when using my iPhone. I pretty much only use Siri to schedule things on my calendar and I always have to manually go in and fix the title.

 

[daveathall]

At least it recognizes your sport. I can't get my cricket scores, ball by ball analysis etc show up as it is not even the sport it supports, and so the sports functionality goes down the drain for me if I cannot manage my favorite sports.

Right now it is just a start, a minor teaser of what it can do once mature. People saying "it is the greatest thing" must be impressed easily because google now has tons of room to expand.

As for Siri, it is ok for being a dumb assistant which does what I command, but nothing much impressive to me and I have turned that off too on my iPhone.

It is annoying that one can't get cricket scores, in the meantime I use this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/

Hope that helps.

 

[thehustleman]

For me Siri works wonderfully. I rarely have problems with her understanding me, even when I have the radio on or my kid yelling in the background lol. And I love how great she is at understanding natural language. So nice to just say "take me home" "call my wife" "remind me to...."when I leave or arrive at a certain location, "buy tickets for..."a movie, or "make a reservation for me at..."restaurant.

Dictation also works great although it can be slow if I speak more than a few sentences before giving it a "break" lol

My sister in law bought an S3 and I was trying to use the voice assistant on it over the weekend. I'm assuming it wasn't Google Now as it was not very good at all. It kept asking us to say "hello something or other" to begin and would take 2-4 tries for it to understand anything we said (3 of us trying multiple times)

That was s-voice.

S-voice sucks beyond belief.

 

[craftytony]

That was s-voice.

S-voice sucks beyond belief.

Ok, that's what I was thinking....Samsung shouldn't even list that as a feature, it's horrible.

 

[nestafaria]

Google now pushes information to me so that I don't have to search for it. IMO, its way better than Siri. I get flight cards automatically, and notifications when my flights change. Same for hotels, along with links back to the original emails for everything. Same for restaurants, along with a map and what time I need to leave the house. I get traffic notifications which come in handy around the DC area. Just b/c of google now, I could never go back to apple.

 

[zone23]

All sounds good in theory, but how does it actually work?

The travel updates never advised me to leave early and I was late a few times

Its gets the info when the order confirmation is emailed to you.