Google Home

For my birthday this year I received a trio of Google products, the Pixel phone, the Google Home device and the Google Daydream headset. I have been spending a lot of time with each and have been pretty happy with them all. Previously I wrote a bit about the Pixel. Today I want to talk about Google Home.

So first off, I have to say that I am totally bought into the Google ecosystem and that this starts with Android which I have used since it debuted on the G1. Everything else here should be viewed through that bias.

My father in law has had the Amazon Echo for two years now and my kids love asking it the same goofy questions they would ask Siri or Google. I toyed with getting the Echo but I always felt that my need for weather, traffic or some random information was pretty low at $150. Around my birthday the price for the Home was dropped from $139 to $100 so I figured at 50% of the cost, what the heck!

The device has a great low profile. The speaker for the system is pretty good. The ability for the device to hear commands from anywhere around the room is downright scary...even over other noises.

So here are some high level thoughts...

The Bad -

Ecosystem - Not much set up for the system yet. The Echo has a 2 year head start on the ecosystem development so the Google command set seems really limited. I suspect this will rapidly change now that the Google Actions and Assistant API pieces are opening up to developers. I suspect it will grow as quickly as the Android ecosystem did once it got rolling. I bet what I am calling a Bad today will quickly become an awesome.

Sonos Integration - I have 3 Sonos speakers in the house. It kills me that there is no integration point with Google Home. While the Home speakers are good, they are not of the quality you have with Sonos. I really hope that Sonos decides to do some kind of integration.

Language interaction - While I don't have any extensive experience with the Echo, I bet that it has a similar problem. The Home wants some pretty specific commands to interact with you. I was struggling mightily to get the Nest interaction down right. Now that I know how to do it things are easier but new interface interactions are going to always have a learning curve in the near term.

The Good -

Design - Low profile. Good sound quality. Creepy good listening.

Nest integration - Love this. I had a bit of a hard time working out the commands but now that I do it is killer to tell the Google Home to warm the house up or to cool it off.

Pixel integration - When you call the action word - Ok Google, both devices respond. If there is an interaction it comes on the louder Google Home. The two devices appear to work seamlessly together although I know that there are some occasional hiccups with that.

The Future - Being totally bought into the Google ecosystem I know that the future holds the ability down the road to search through my old emails, update my calendar, read me a particular document etc. The creation of an "App store" like framework for developers that can be used for things like Android phones and Chromecast devices has some killer potential for home automation and interaction.

Bottom Line - If you are a Google centric user, save the money and grab a Google Home. It is not at the same place as the Echo in terms of support currently but my guess is that it will get there in the next 12 months and accelerate beyond the Echo. If you are not a Google user and you want to experiment I am guessing the Echo dot might be a good call. I haven't looked into it yet but I believe that you can get one solo without an Echo. I suspect voice interfaces are in for a lot of great developments in the coming year.

Google Pixel

Over the last few extended weeks of my birthday celebration, I managed to get 3 gifts that are from the current Google lineup. I wanted to share some brief thoughts on them. Today is the main one, my new Google Pixel phone.

I have been an Android user since the first Google phone the G1. Along the way I have repeatedly updated my phones as the newer version have come to market. In many cases I have had a later model iPhone as well as a testing phone for the various companies I have been at over the years. While I know many of my friends love iPhones, my favoring of Android has never let up.

Over the last 6 years I have exclusively owned Google Nexus phones. While I know a number of people who enjoy the Samsung and other variants of Android devices, I have always preferred the stripped down software on Nexus devices and I have enjoyed having early access to the latest flavors of Android.

My most recent phone until the Pixel has been the Nexus 6. I recall at the time it came out I was very disappointed that I only had one option to buy a gigantic phone. Over the two years I used it I definitely became comfortable with the size and all in all it was a pretty outstanding phone.

The Pixel for me is a move back to a smaller device which I am generally excited about. I think I could have easily gone with the Pixel XL as well but it was nice to switch back to a smaller device.

There are a number of great sites that have comprehensive reviews of the Pixel so I am not going to try to cover much but instead wanted to highlight a couple areas that are either very interesting or very disappointing. Before I do that I have to say that I really love this new phone so any issues are generally minor.

The Bad...

GPS - My GPS has something crazy going on. When using Maps or Waze, the Pixel occasionally looses precise location tracking. This has resulted in some annoying freeway announcements from my phone as well as literally getting lost in a residential neighborhood while trying to pick up a kid from a friends house. I have contacted customer support and sometime in the next few days will try to take the steps that will fix it. Unfortunately I don't think the steps will work but we will see.

Speaker - The speaker on this phone is just bad. I cringe at the thought of using this phone for conference calls in speaker phone which was something that was stellar on the Nexus 6. I am dumbfounded on why you would go cheap on a premium phone in the speaker department.

USB C - Guess all my old chargers are obsolete now. The upside though is that the charging time is amazing.

The Good...

Software - Clean new Android software with lots of good bells and whistles.

Camera - Probably the best camera I have had on a phone.

Speed - Everything is lightning fast.

The Awesome...

Google Assistant - While this is not where it needs to be today....it is light years ahead of Siri and is a big improvement on the Google Voice / Google Now services that I have grown to love on the Nexus 6. Google will be granting API access of some sorts for Assistant in the coming month and I am sure that there will be some great development in that arena. I especially like the way Assistant interacts with the Google Home device. I will chat more about that next.

Google Daydream - Wow. That like the Google Home will be it's own topic but suffice to say it has been the first wow moment I have experienced with virtual reality.

Back soon with comments on Google Home and Google Daydream.

G1 Likes and Dislikes

Based on the last thing I wrote I thought it would be good to share two more things. First, what I like and dislike about the G1. Second, what applications or interesting things I use on the phone. I will do the second one later. This one will be about likes and dislikes.

Right off the bat a big disclaimer. Most people primarily use their phones to call people and to send text messages. My phone works great for that. These comments are more about the things that phone nerds do with phones.

So let's start with the dislikes and end on a positive note with the likes.

Dislikes

Total Google Buy In - I knew coming in this was going to be the Google phone. It even says so on the back. I use a lot of Google services and have no problem with Google but setting the phone up brought the integration front and center immediately. The key piece that highlighted this was the use of Google contacts. I have somewhere near 1400 contacts in my cell phone and contact database and their is no easy way to get them into the G1. Well, except importing all your contacts to Google Contacts. Given that Google knows what web sites I surf and a bunch of other stuff, I am a bit hesitant to just hand that over. Ultimately I did, but I have to say that it was with a lot of reservations.

Out of the box email - A closely related issue to the first problem is email support. Out of the box mail support was buggy when I first used the phone (my first phone was stolen but that is another story). If you want to use email, users were pushed to use a program called K9, which is ok, but certainly not all that in my opinion, especially when compared to what I had on my old Sony phones. There is one exception. Gmail is wired in hard and has awesome integration. The problem with that for me is that I use Gmail as a spam catcher and I can't really use it as my primary email.

IM - As a devoted Sidekick users, I was pumped to be using a device that is a spiritual descendant of the Sidekick. One real big win with the G1 was the addition of Google Talk along with the standard services, AIM, MSN and Yahoo. The problem with this device though is that Google Talk works in an awesome way and the other ones are lacking. The way the Sidekick would hold IM sessions doesn't seem to be implemented here and it may be because of some proprietary Danger IP. Given they way IM works, with the exception of Google Talk, it really isn't a good always on IM device, at least with the default IM software. I haven't tried some of the other 3rd party services like Meebo but the net net of this was that I felt like in this area the device misses the mark.

Battery - This has been covered widely elsewhere. The battery, at least the first version, drained in no time at all. The firmware upgraded improved things significantly but the underlying power issue remains in my opinion. What I mean by that is that if I am using services other than call standby, for example wifi or gps, I have to keep an eye on the battery. With those services suspended the battery is ok, but the hope of a device like this is that you can take advantage of those advanced services without constantly looking for a power supply. This isn't unique to the G1 but it is something that is hopefully solved over time.

App store - I have a love hate opinion of the initial application store. I love the ratings and comments. I love some of the really cool G1 applications that are unique to the device like Wikitude and Locale. I dislike how hard it is to find useful applications. I think the merchandising job that Apple does is way better although I suspect that over time either Google or some specific operators will make something compelling.

Some problems aren't obvious - When things go bad with the G1, it isn't always clear what is wrong or how to fix it. Two cases in point. First Tmobile hotspot access. On my old phone, I had to reboot the phone to get my phone to login to a hotspot for free wifi surfing. Hack. On my new phone, I can never connect to Tmobile hotspots. Not sure why. Haven't been able to find an answer online. Seems buggy.

The second one was an issue around contacts. My contacts disappeared one day. I synced and they came back but when I tried to do subsequent sync's I got an error message saying sync was down and would come back later. Except it never did. I broke down and searched extensively and while I found multiple suggestions n how to fix this, ultimately I had to go To My Faves, delete all my contacts and re-sync. That worked. Very intuitive, especially since I don't use My Faves. I don't get that linkage.

Camera - I find the camera on the G1 to be slow and cumbersome. It is certainly fine enough but by comparison the Nokia cameras are literally good enough to be a stand alone camera.

Tethering - Can't do that. I could always do that with my other phones on Tmobile's network. Frown.

Likes

Keyboard and Trackball - Bad ass. The keyboard is better than just about every QWERTY device I have used (although I still like the rubber buttons from the Sidekick II). That trackball is AWESOME. So not only do I get touch, which appears to be the interface dujour for a lot of consumers, I get some of the things that are important to me, a keyboard, as well as a trackball, which you may not realize, but is something you will use frequently with this device and certainly long for it on others once you have tried it.

Background Processes - One of the coolest things about the G1 is that applications can run in the background. Examples of this are primarily GPS, but it extends to other things. I will hit the GPS application use cases in my next post but suffice it to say, unlike the iPhone, this phone can do more than one thing at a time. If you are looking to take advantage of advanced features, this is a must.

Best Browser on Mobile - The default browser on the G1 is amazing. It has full Javascript support so while I am booking a flight on Virgin America, I can actually get through the process where Shawn on his iPhone has to pull out the laptop. Again the trackball is a good compliment to the browser especially when the website is involved. I haven't seen any other browser with the same sort of support on mobile.

Google integration - While I cited Google buy in as a dislike, the depth of the integration is amazing, and if you are bought into the various Google services, they are here in spades. Maps, Gmail, Google Talk, etc. All the handoffs are nice and it is an amazing extension of a web software platform to a hardware device.

Compass and Accelerometer - It has both. It is especially cool with apps like Sky Map and wikitude. More on those two later.

Full package - In general, the G1 is the best blend of a computer and a cell phone I have seen. I can do many of the things one can do on a laptop (mountable storage drives via SD, web surf, email, IM) but also have a first class phone experience. I have not commented on the media capabilities which I think are sufficient but I prefer to have my media devices independent of the phone, ergo I have a Touch. I know others feel differently but for me this is a good blend.

So that is it in a nutshell. On balance, I am really pleased with the phone. I think there will be some interesting upgrades in future versions and you can count me as someone who plans on following future updates. Next up, applications I use.

Tmobile Android G1 Phone

Ordered mine today. Can't wait.

Google Maps Goodness

I am heading to San Francisco tomorrow for a speaking event at Haas and for some meetings. One of my meetings is with someone I have never met before who happens to live in Santa Cruz. I asked him to meet me in the city and he asked me to suggest a place. There is a place over on Brannan near Bacar that I can't remember the name of for the life of me. It is a place I like to go to when I am meeting with Six Apart or some of the other companies in the area.

I used Google maps to search for Six Apart. After that I did a local business search for restaurant and cafe and bar. None of the results were the place I was looking for. That didn't make any sense to me. I know this place is all three of those things. And it is good. I had a bright idea. How about I use the street view and meander down the street. Having been there many times I knew exactly where it was but that would be of no help to the guy I was meeting. I cruised down Brannan until I saw the familiar place, The Brickhouse cafe and bar. Now that is some useful stuff.

Google History

Have you checked out Google history? You should. It is awesome, and brilliant and scary, all at the same time. If you have read my blog before and wondered about my posts on Attention, or went and read some Goldhaber stuff, or checked out Atten.tv, and you still find that this topic is a bit academic or difficult to grok, then I suggest you go check out Google History.

A week or two ago, I read a post about Google history and quickly signed up and allowed the logging of all my data in a variety of categories. Then I forgot about it, much the same way I keep my Attention recorder running on my browser (By the way...When is Root.net going to fix their security certificate? Very disappointing, but that is another post...).

Earlier this week I went in to see what was in my Google history goodie bag. The main page is a chronological listing of all the pages I clicked on from now going backwards. I have this in Root.net as well but I get to block out certain domains I may not want to record (things like ego surfing my site statistics). Not here, everything gets recorded. Not really a problem, but still kind of freaky when you sit down and think about it and then multiply me by the population of the web world who uses Google. I am creeping you out yet?

I can then slice it more finely by looking at just news, or images or videos etc. especially for Google related services. Not too shabby.

I then click on trends which slices out the top queries, top sites, and top clicks. Are you still wondering why they are making so much money in advertising? Hold on there is more...I almost forgot to add you can slice that by week, month, all time etc.

My favorite part though, and where I think it all really comes together is the tab called interesting items. Here Google has determined other searches, pages, videos and gadgets that might be relevant to what I have been up to while surfing on the web. The list of pages is pretty impressive as we have been doing the fund raising exercise and the top 10 list for me includes nine venture firms and a buyout firm. Uncanny. I am curious though on how they rank them. Could it mean that the sum total of my interests (wireless, media, etc) when intersected with venture fund raising means that these are the best prospects for closing a round with those specific venture firms? Hard to say. In any event I was pretty surprised that there weren't fantasy football references or NFL draft results or other items which given the recent NFL draft would make the most sense. Maybe the algorithm is skewed?

In any case, if you have the slightest interest in Attention or wanting to understand the data you are throwing off when you mindlessly browse and search the web, I would certainly recommend that you check this service out. In any event, Google isn't the only company tracking this data (Yahoo, Doubleclick, AOL, etc.) and I think it is important we all be cognizant of the invisible transactions we are all generating behind the scenes with our web based actions. A final note is that I am not a Google hater or fearer as I know some are. I use Blogger, Google, Gmail, Google Apps and occasionally Google Maps. I get that the price of the services I am using are a value exchange that they need to offset by profiling me in great deal to yield high advertising returns. I would however like for Google to give me the option to keep my own copy of all the data they are keeping on me in the event that I want to use it for my own benefit somewhere down the road. You know, like when I am trying to decide which venture firms I should call on first, or which ones I should cross off the list. :-)