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Comment by afavour

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 $$$)

parent afavour 2 years ago

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