It looks like they changed their ecosystem to use Google Products because they have more feature that they want. All of these decisions are valid. To be honest the biggest issue with Google is the support and longevity of the software that they create. On Apple it seems like they are slowly moving to more of a service oriented platform and are attempting to overhaul it but at the cost of their Prosumers.
I really hope that eventually in the "post screen era" that we don't have to buy devices that are owned by one company.
If very people you know use Facebook and Facebook has over 210 million users in the United States (https://www.statista.com/statistics/398136/us-facebook-user-...) isn't that the definition of "anecdote is not data"?
If you look at the daily usage numbers of Facebook and Instagram, the data doesn't support your conclusion.
If Apple one day said they weren't going to allow Facebook on their phone, who do you think it would hurt more - Facebook or Apple (ignoring the fact that the FB experience is a lot better in the browser.)
Can't think of anything I would want less than one of the big 5 US companies spying on me everywhere all the time.
This seems like quite a distorted definition of spying. Is Hacker News spying on you by keeping access logs of site usage? That doesn't seem like a fair characterization either.
I don’t use Siri. Apple Maps sucks and as a result I don’t use CarPlay. Apple Music search sucks. There’s a bunch of thing now in Apple’s ecosystem that don’t “just work”. More and more I find myself telling my wife that Apple is slipping. Privacy concerns are the only thing keeping off of Google’s system but it won’t be long before the hostile nature of Apples system forces me to abandon ship.
I think Apple ought to spend a year concentrating on fixing the increasing number of annoyances and stop doing stupid things like keeping Google maps off Car Play. What’s the point of adding features that don’t “just work”?
Last week I had to connect my iPhone to my computer (despite wireless sync being enabled), use iTunes to copy audiobook files to my phone, and then for some reason I can only access them in the iBooks app on the phone, despite them not being available in the app of the same name on my Mac. It reminded me of Bill Gates’ famous MovieMaker rant.
One more thing...if I want to watch video files on my iOS device, why do I need to use an obscure app called TV? Would it make sense if I had to use an app called Radio to listen to audio files?
Software wise, Inbox is better than Mail.app, Google maps are better, Google calendar is better, Google photos are better, etc...
It's 2018 and my iPhone is sluggish as hell. My Mac is really slow too, and I definitely believe that the price of those devices is really too high for the time they last. I couldn't resolve to get back to the big G, because I really care about my privacy.
After some research, I rented a VPS (2vCPU, 4GB RAM, 2TB disk for 11€/month) and installed a Nextcloud instance on it to backup my files and photos mostly. I got back my old Nexus 5 and installed LineageOS without Google Apps nor MicroG (all I have installed on it comes from F-Droid, which rebuilds from source and signs the apk).
I can tell I'm much more satisfied with this set-up. I have to use an iPhone 6 at work, and it feels really silly that an older Nexus 5 is lightning fast compared to my iPhone 6. The latter keeps hanging and freezing all the time. Even simple tasks as text messaging or email consultation is a pain.
However I’ll never move to Android. I’ve tried it and it just isn’t as good as iOS. I’m not saying iOS is great but it’s ceetainly better in my opinion.
Things like FaceTime are very easy for my parents and relatives to understand vs something like Skype or google hangouts. Photostream sharing is also a very easy and intuitive way for me to share pics of the kids with my relatives as well.
The biggest thing for me, though, was the fact that iMessage and iPhone was uncrackable by the fbi. It’s a very public fight they had to keep our data secure.
Voice as a user interface is almost here:
https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2017/12/13/voice-as-a-user-inte...
How long before a significant amount of search is simply asking some device a question and being told the answer?
Probably never. People read way faster than listen and in a productivity obsessed world this matters a lot. People also don't want others to hear what they are searching for. And these things are part of human nature, not something to get used to.
I can see people doing voice-typing on mobile when they are in private, because mobile is super awkward to type on. But that's about it.
https://searchengineland.com/google-reveals-20-percent-queri...
Similar to Apple with the iPhone, Amazon dominance on voice interfaces might end up being only true for the US market.
- load all your images on their servers
- load all your documents on their servers
- load all your mails on their servers
- load all your contacts on their servers
- load all your appointments on their servers
- load all your...
That way it is completely non-transparent what they are doing with your data. I mean for every app on our smartphone we have a detailed list of permissions, but for google its just 'take it all'?!?
And it's not like Apple's any different here, or like it's realistic to try and do these sorts of things from local resources.
I've been working on moving a lot of my data and services off the cloud and it's very hard even if you know what you're doing. You need to be able to build a home lab, have some solution for connectivity to your home (most people have never heard of ngrok, dyndns simply doesn't work well for many use cases), and spend lots of money on storage. This isn't like renting more expensive cloud computing services, the cost is below $25USD a month.
1: “hey Siri, open google” -> opens google app
2: “ok google, navigate to [name of destination] -> opens it in google maps...
Everything he says is technically possible, but how many people are both technical enough to set this stuff up and care enough to even bother? I know people who have smart speakers, but most of them just use them for music.
I want to know if we can get compelling competition to macOS & MBP? Use that platform as a trojan horse to win over developers.
Ok a couple of quick quotes:
"I say 'OK Google, goodbye when I leave the house to turn off the lights" k. I just turn off the lights. Why do I need a Google Home to do that? Why can't I do that with Homekit or Echo?
" grew frustrated by Apple's terrible iCloud pricing, and how seemingly great Google Photos appeared to be"
iCloud's pricing isn't terrible, it's just fine. They don't mine my photos and data, and I pay $2.99/month for 200gb. Some people don't understand that "free" photo storage isn't actually free.
"First, Google Assistant alongside Google Home is wild. When you own a Pixel, saying OK Google at home activates your speakers and your phone"
yawn
"Apple's direction, for better or for worse, is to lock you into a single track and make it agonizing to use anything but the official services"
Really?
Look, I think the Pixel 2 is a great phone and Google has some great products, even if I disagree with their business practices, but this article is over-the-top bad.
