Google Assistant 17+

Our family are Apple fanbois - we have four iPhones, three iPads and three Apple Watches.

However even we have to concede Google Assistant is miles ahead of Siri. As a personal assistant there’s not much difference IMHO but the fact that the Assistant has access to the Google search engine and all the rich information stored there makes them chalk and cheese.

As an example try asking Siri, Alexa and Google when the next bus to a local location is. Siri and Alexa will probably either not know, or offer a very poor response. Google will probably tell you the time and location of the next bus, and offer walking directions to the bus stop and send them to your phone if you‘ve downloaded the Assistant app.

It may have changed but we also found the fact the Google Home ecosystem can detect a users voice and respond to their individual profile really useful. For example asking “what’s in my calendar” will provide a personalised response. When we first looked at home speakers neither Siri nor Alexa could do this but I believe it’s in it’s way.

This little speaker, on a good day, is, indeed, ‘smart’, but then, sometimes it wakes up ‘in a mood’, and seems to be ‘stupid’, deliberately, just to annoy you. What you asked it to do or play a few hours earlier, and you ask it again, elicits the response, ‘I’m not sure how to do that’. Oh yes you do, you say, you did it a few minutes ago! Asking it to play a playlist from your google play music library can often result in tempers becoming frayed, (although the google assistant usually remains calm, despite repeated requests). I once asked it to play my playlist 8 times, and the first 7 times, it got it wrong, but it was a case of ‘8th time lucky’. When it works, it’s great, but when it doesn’t, an anger management course is often the best solution. Unfortunately, you can reboot and re-set the speaker, but you can’t reboot yourself! The ability to learn, and be able to speak, ‘Googlese’ helps enormously!

While I generally prefer Google over Siri the Google apps tend to be a real complex and confusing jumble when it comes to settings that are scattered about all over the place and change with almost every update. I also can’t fathom why, when I open the Assistant app, next to my account icon in the top right there is a red dot. It looks like it should mean you have some kind of notification but tapping it to open up the settings and there’s nothing! Also the Assistant sometimes pops up a notification asking ‘Which device did you expect to respond’, tapping that just takes you to a blank Assistant page so why bother? It’s a pointless notification that merely wastes your time. Google’s good at information only, Apple leaves them in the dust when it comes to user interface and interaction.