

Google Now failed me - jeena
https://jeena.net/google-now-failed-me

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dragonwriter
Unsurprising:

> Because it is my work phone and doesn't relate to me as a private person too
> much I thought I could try Google Now which is advertised as a help in life
> without the need of you adding data manually.

The whole premise of Google Now is that it is a help in life "without the need
of you adding data manually" _because_ it leverages information from your
Google Account which, presumably, _does_ relate to your "life as a private
person" quite deeply.

If your whole basis for trying it out in a particular context is that that
context is _isolated_ from most of your life, yeah, its not going to work.

It's like choosing to try out a Ferrari in the middle of the Sahara desert
because its isolated from paved roads.

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PeterWhittaker
My experience is similar: Started off as a light and resistant Google user,
learned about Now, decided to go all-in, so that _The Google_ could know so
much about me it would tell me and show me useful things.

At first, maybe it did. Over time results have seemed to become random and
uninteresting, as others have suggested.

"Google Now == Great Big Meh" in my book.

Does Google suffer from "shiny" disorder? Do they come up with cool ideas,
jump on, do cool stuff, only to get distracted when things get challenging?
That would explain Now and a great many other things.

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dragonwriter
I use Now and I _do_ heavily use my Google Account (logged in Google searches,
Chrome with Chrome sync tied to my account across multiple devices, Gmail,
etc.) -- and Now does quite a lot for me. Updates to blogs I visit regularly
get shown on Now. I get reminders based on flight itineraries that are in my
Gmail (e.g., when my wife is travelling and forwards me her itinerary) without
taking any action to make it happen, including notifications of flight delays.
It provides travel times to places I frequently travel. It suggests pages I
might be interested in based on previous browsing happens -- which seemed
wierd at first, but I found some interesting things that way that I might have
otherwise not run into.

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saturdaysaint
I haven't exactly found much of a use case for it - I juggle iOS and Android
and as far as I'm concerned iOS cribbed the most useful bits (upcoming
appointments and predicted commute times).

Being more of a music guy than a sports fan, too much of what I'm actually
interested in is just not hooked into Google. If Now could aggregate
band/comedian tours stopping in town, album releases, local symphonic events,
I'd use it every day. I wish it could alert me when a new Netflix series I'm
into is premiering. I'm surprised that none of the big players have aquired
Songkick, which is what I use for these kinds of events, or something similar.

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pornel
When I first saw 'Now' suggest "You need to leave now to make it for $your
calendar event" I thought it was super cool and it was one of the reasons I
got Android.

But nowdays I don't use it. The clever reminder is too random to be relied
upon (I guess it has trouble recognizing addresses which include company or
building name) and rest of the cards are either wrong or irrelevant.

To make things worse Nexus5+KitKat desperately pushes 'Now': left unremovable
homescreen = Now, top unremovable search bar = Now, bottom unremovable swipe =
Now. Now! Now! (I've had to remove Google launcher just to get rid of it).

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akumen
Besides being stupid, the main problem with Google Now and other "predictive"
assistants is that they have no understanding of intent/context.

Google Now would often display travel time to locations and other irrelevant
information based on my recent searches. Even though the information was
irrelevant. It had no idea WHY I searched for a restaurant in Bordeaux, for
example. Sigh. Pointless indeed.

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mcherm
That is an interesting perspective. For me, I find Google Now rather
convenient. I don't have to look up the weather in my current location. I
don't have to dig through my emails to find which flight I am on. It brings up
the traffic-adjusted time to get home right when I finish up work.

None of these are things I couldn't live without; most just save a click or
two. But I find them useful.

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Fuzzwah
Now helps me with traffic.

If I was into any of the big American sports I think it would be cool. Alas,
my interest is in Formula 1 and Rugby Union, neither of which have any
coverage in Now.

Also, because I tend to not watch either of these sports live, I suspect that
Now would just spoilerize my interests anyway.

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wowfat
Works very well for me. Shows me my flights & flights of relatives and status
of their flights. Shows me meeting reminders and traffic to there. Also,
tracks packages that come through on email along with hotel bookings.

On nexus 5 and primary phone for all emails.

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matt__rose
Google now will occasionally alert me to heavy traffic on the way home. That's
about it.

