
Google Now’s Staff Exodus Reveals Hurdles for New CEO Pichai - msh
http://recode.net/2015/08/24/after-staff-exodus-microsoft-apple-pressure-next-for-google-now/
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ChuckMcM
Historically, given Google's flexibility in transferring from project to
project, and the lack of promotion benefit in working on a project that has
already 'shipped', a "staff exodus" isn't really indicative of anything other
than the engineers were moving on to something new to add to their Google
Resume.

I think the article was trying to couch this more as a "barbarians at the
gate" piece with Microsoft in the role of the Huns, but that analogy falls
pretty flat given the amount of innovation going on in both companies.

What I found really interesting is that Apple isn't really mentioned.
Yesterday I got a push notification on my iPad about all the new things Siri
could do. I'm not entirely sure how to interpret that but I'm guessing the
race is on to make the voice inputs more functional. That, for me at least, is
a part that makes something like Google now useful or not. I've been
developing a habit of adding reminders for things to do when I get into work
and that helps keep things from dropping off the plate, prior to location
based reminders it really wasn't frictionless enough for me. And the pre-
processing of things like flight iteneraries has stuff like the flight
confirmation code easily accessed.

The bottom line is I can see the path to a mobile device I talk to, and it
talks back, much like an executive secretary, to keep the important bits in
order so I can focus on other things. Is Cortana winning that battle? Siri?
Google? Hard to say, but the battle is definitely engaged.

~~~
micampe
Can we stop talking about market competition as a battle where the only
outcome is a single winner? That is almost never the result and almost never
what you want as a customer/user/consumer.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Sure we can stop, although it is a competition. Its a competition for dollars,
it has territory, it has strategies and tactics, and it generally is amenable
to the same analysis you would use when analyzing armies attempting to
capture, defend, or hold territory.

~~~
micampe
I called it a competition myself. My issue is only with the part where people
look for an overall “winner”. It’s an evolutionary process, there is no
winner. Your ending question will likely never have a meaningful answer.

~~~
ChuckMcM
But there are extinctions, which is kind of like losing. But more importantly
there are technologies that become widespread (VHS) and those that never do
(BetaMax) and understanding the successful technology as the area where
additional investment is merited is often, if imprecisely, called the
"winning" technology.

I can absolutely guarantee that my ending question will have a meaningful
answer, either one or none of these systems will be the one that everyone
uses, the other two will be the "niche" ones that hardly anybody uses (and I
say this as a diehard Amiga fan boy). And as much as I might dislike the
choice the market makes, I understand that once critical mass is achieved, it
becomes economically unviable to continue investing in the "losing"
technology.

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franze
Question: Who here uses Google Now?

I tried to use it while in the US. The information it pushed to me was right
more than half of the time, useful about 5% of the time.

Here in Europe it's pretty useless. No cards or no relevant cards.

~~~
shazow
I can't live without it.

Day to day, I get all my weather (current location and upcoming locations
based on travel itinerary), my financial interests' status (based on google
finance portfolio), traffic (based on calendar event locations).

Occasionally, it _really_ saves my bacon. I was about to head over to JFK in a
few hours to board a flight to the west coast when Washington DC suddenly
became a massive no-fly zone and dozens of flights got cancelled on the
spot[0]. I had no idea, and probably wouldn't have known until I got to the
airport a few hours later and reached the gate. Except—Google Now alerted me
that my flight was cancelled the moment it happened (even before news broke
about what caused it). Immediately we hopped on the phone and got another
flight booked, before the airline itself even started rebooking flights. In
fact, the airline never even bothered to alert us that the flight was
cancelled.

Similar situations have happened with traffic through construction, presumably
pulled from Waze alerts ("hey your next appointment is at X, and normally it
would take 25min to get there but today it'll take 40min because this freeway
is completely closed").

Google Now is basically a collection of a dozen services that I rather not
bother manage independently, all without any interaction or signup. Yes, it
"reads my email" and my calendar and the queries I make through it.

Another fun example: I was researching which phone I wanted to buy next, so I
was googling a bunch of phones that haven't been released yet. Few weeks
later, it pops up on Google Now "hey, you searched for this and there's news
about it today."

Lots of cute little surprises when you travel, too. Entering a new country?
It'll show you the local currency exchange and the timezone difference (and
nearby attractions that I often ignore).

Anyways, it's a great integrated experience and just keeps getting better over
time.

[0]. [http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/15/dc-new-
york-...](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/15/dc-new-york-flights-
hold-air-traffic-control-issue/)

~~~
backtoyoujim
Although in your world that might feel like an app that everyone would use ...
most of us go to a job in the same city in the same location day after day.

The problem may be that those apps are actually aimed at such a small portion
of the earth's population (read: frequent business travelers) that maybe it is
not sustainable.

~~~
stonemetal
The traffic alerts, weather, game scores, and appointment reminder are pretty
nice, even if you don't travel. The events near by could be useful too. It is
very convenient if you have an android phone, but I doubt I would miss it much
if it wasn't there.

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viksit
Question - how many of you use google now's voice functionality, vs the
inbuilt push notifications/card interfaces? A lot of comments here focus on
the latter, but I'm surprised not many mentioned the former.

To me, siri/cortana are aiming to be the method of conversational interaction
for your phone in the future whereas Now is trying to be the
intelligent/interactive notifications platform.

That seems like the fundamental difference.

~~~
untog
I agree, and I'm very glad that Google Now is doing the latter. I have no
desire to interact with my phone by voice and honestly, every time I've tried
it I've been deeply underwhelmed. Maybe it's because I live in a city where
no-one drives - I can see it being useful while driving.

Presenting cards/notifications about something _before I ask for it_ will
always be a superior interface to one that requires you to act, IMO.

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jbb555
Google now seemed interesting when it was launched... but it doesn't seem to
have gone anywhere. Never seems to display anything useful at all.

~~~
iterati
The transit alerts for NYC are pretty brain dead. I get alerts at lunch
alerting me that my commute home has service disruptions on the subway. I'm
not leaving for 6+ hours so the notifications are useless.

~~~
untog
Odd, I don't get that at all. I only ever get notifications around the times I
leave home or the office.

~~~
nevi-me
I visit my girlfriend and friends in predictable schedules, and I always like
the gesture of it telling me how long it will take to get to each of them on
those days and times.

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usmeteora
On the note of all the comments bashing the usefulness of Google Now in the
first place, I think it would be helpful is Google had some visuals on use,
growth of use and genre of cards, and some survey feedback about it.

I like

1\. stepping out of work after a 13 hour day and pulling up my phone and
google telling me which way I need to drive home because there is a 20min
delay due to an accident. It's not something I think about everyday to check,
just like checking the weather at 6am in the morning. Sure if my life was
perfect I would but it's not. Google does these simple tasks for me and turns
bad days into better ones but not adding on another 45min on the way home when
I have already had a long day.

2\. airports/new city? I wake up in the morning google already knows if my
flight has been rerouted, the potential for delay due to weather, and whatever
airport or new city I'm in, it tells me where there is to eat and what to do.
Sure there are plenty of additional apps I could download if I was in the "in
crowd" in san fran and knew the best ones for each city, but I'm not, and
usually I'm busy so I want to have 15 highly ranked restaurants give me the
best selection.

If I'm there on vacation sure I'll put more effort into finding off the beaten
path places but honestly google now is helpful for people distracted with
their everyday life.

3\. At one point I was with visiting my boyfriend while he was on a business
trip in Flagstaff. Google obviously knows we are dating. My phone was dead but
the reminder for my flight came up on his phone. Sure there is a separate
"app" just for that, per airline and then I could share my flight with my bf
but WHY? Google already knew where he was, knew I was most likely flying there
to visit him and gave him updates on my schedule 24hrs before hand all the way
until I got home safely, as well as myself. Easy, one less thing to worry
about in 2 peoples busy working lives. Once I send him my flight info, google
picked right up on it. No "extra" apps needed. Didn't have to think to
remember to do this.

4\. I use google keep notes like an OCD freak as well so its nice to have what
I've decided it important to me as well as things that I'd like to check if I
remembered but google already has it staring back at me on my screen when I
wake up in the morning or walk into a crowded airport or think I'm having an
normal ride home.

I also (and for most young kids in big cities) have a busy social life and go
to lots of music shows, but I go to alot so I don't remember the time date and
price of every one so it's just nice to have if I don't do the same thing
everyday.

It makes driving home, navigating airports, remembering to wish your college
roommate happy birthday on the way to your rerouted terminal and also knowing
you have an extra 10minutes to go to jamba juice that you didn't know was
around the corner so you don't have to live off airplane food.

These are things that make my day alot nicer, alot more functional. I don't
know what all the fuss about google now is...

That being said, the implications on privacy and how this data is stored and
shared is an entirely different story from how convenient it is, but I am
commenting on its usefulness, which other people don't seem to agree with.

------
cwyers
The interesting subtext to all this is that Android wasn't originally a Google
project at all - Android was originally a project started by some ex-Danger
workers. Google bought them out because they didn't want to be locked out of
mobile search (and give them credit for prescience because the iPhone hadn't
been announced yet).

Pichai didn't work on Android, or even search or AdWords or what have you. He
worked on a browser toolbar before working on Chrome. Chrome seems to have
constantly won internal battles at Google (look at how long Google resisted
making Android tablets in favor of giving ChromeOS tablets time to develop),
even as Chrome is probably the less successful of the two. It shouldn't be
surprising that he lets search take over a project that started in Android.

~~~
mehrdada
> _give them credit for prescience because the iPhone hadn 't been announced
> yet_

Eric Schmidt was on the Apple board. I wonder how much credit goes to their
prescience and how much of it goes to their inside knowledge of the facts.

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CmonDev
He is a manager by trade. What is his vision? Why would he inspire developers?

~~~
x5n1
"We're going to put out a lot of new products, and cancel most of them leaving
our users high and dry. This will inspire yet more developers to jump on
board."

------
mrwilliamchang
The original Google Now team leaving is not indicative of a problem. Google
Now is more a search product than an Android product, so it makes sense for it
to be taken over by Search engineers.

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ericfrederich
I'm on a developer preview version of Android M, I just installed Bing Search,
can't seem to get it to work. Perhaps there is a conflict? I enabled Bing in
accesibility but when I long-press the circle button it still opens Google
Now.

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mobster
Not a regular on re/code but is it a google-hostile territory? It looked like
the author tried too hard to prove a point on Pichais' leadership, Now on
Taps' future sooner than it is possible. And that drawing contrast to Bings'
feature is uncanny too.

~~~
untog
It isn't hostile just because it draws a conclusion about something.

~~~
mobster
yeah, a terrible conclusion with slim data, isn't it? thats where opinion and
propaganda (and downvoting) come into picture. and ggle is not my favorite
company, even by long shot.

