Google Assistant Is A Liar

Will Truman

Will Truman is the Editor-in-Chief of Ordinary Times. He is also on Twitter.

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7 Responses

  1. Silver Wolf says:

    Maybe it is like most people and it is getting embarrassed by how often it fails to understand, so it makes up an excuse.

    “It isn’t me, it’s the connection. Try again. I’m sure ‘the internet’ will work this time.”

    I have this problem when I am talking to co-workers with thick accents. I tell them I don’t understand so often it gets uncomfortable. Perhaps Google it trying to pass a Turing test.Report

    • dragonfrog in reply to Silver Wolf says:

      I’ll try that next time I’m trying to have a conversation in a loud bar.

      “I’m sorry, your internet connection is unstable at the moment”

      Of course, the other person is just as deafened as me, so they’ll probably just nod and say “Cool!” and carry on with their story.Report

  2. Catchling says:

    I bet the Auto version has an entirely different (and as shown here, sometimes wrong) procedure for figuring out the strength of the connection, since the connection’s hardware is built into a car rather than a phone.Report

    • Will Truman in reply to Catchling says:

      AndroidAuto isn’t actually built into the car. It’s an app on the phone. You can often hook it up to a car (if compatible), but I just put the phone on a mount and the only interaction with the car system is the bluetooth connection for audio.

      If it were hardware on the car, my thinking would be the same as yours: The car’s hardware is either inferior or runs differently.Report

      • DavidTC in reply to Will Truman says:

        Even if your car supported it, it would still be running on your phone. That part of AndroidAuto is basically remote display tech…the phone creates a new virtual ‘screen’ area internally that a few specific applications know how to use (Including, obviously, the control app), and then sends it, along with the audio(1), over to the AndroidAuto head unit. And the phone gets touches and button presses back.

        There’s actually an Android app out there that can fake the display side of that and lets other Android devices connect and speak ‘AndroidAuto’ to it.

        When you’re using it locally, of course, the phone just uses its actual screen for all that instead of making a virtual one and sending it over USB connection to the display unit.

        1) Weirdly, while normal audio out is sent over the AA connection, I think phone calls still use bluetooth?Report

  3. Pinky says:

    I don’t use Google Assistant, but I have to say that this article reads equally well as “level-headed observation” and “mad rant”. Kudos.Report