I'd judge it to be 80% reliable in picking up commands (but the way human memory works, it's likely much higher than that but the times it fails are more memorable)
But HomePod is a phenomenal speaker.
At least that was my experience before I gave away a gifted Google Home because it refused to let me proceed through setup without disabling a bunch of privacy settings across my entire Google account.
Hey HomePod, play something sinister.
If you have other Apple devices, it works just like Siri on your phone. I've got one in my kitchen and it can hear me anywhere in my 3 bedroom house. It's pretty impressive from an audio recognition standpoint.
Amazon and Google both have much better home assistants built in.
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/4/11362928/google-nest-revol...
But I agree with you.. they're generally better about hardware support than software.
The "Nest" rebrand of the Google Home devices to me signifies that they're really investing in this consumer IoT product line. That and they're (arguably) the dominant player in the space.
Nexus Player still works though.
Even with Nest specifically they dropped Works With Nest support last year, effectively killing off the many integrations that had been built since 2014 in favor of their newer Works with Google Assistant program.
https://mashable.com/article/google-glass-explorer-edition-f...
Google (and Amazon) have significant cloud infrastructures. The sequence of wake -> audio clip -> cloud -> process -> command -> device --- that's how they do it.
Apple has taken a different route with a limited set of "domains" which have voice processing associated with them. These can be seen in https://developer.apple.com/documentation/sirikit which has different apps register that they can handle different domains.
This means that Google (and Amazon) will have a stronger parsing of those sentences and commands for arbitrary queries. Siri, however, has a stronger integration with arbitrary commands that are part of an existing 'domain' being handled by an existing app.
The multiple device wake is an interesting problem (I've seen Alexa, when two devices both wake, verify that the correct one had the response). With Siri, I've seen multiple devices wake, but I haven't had multiple ones respond - I suspect there's some network traffic to decide which one has the best audio signal and ability to process the information... but that's my experience, I could very well be wrong there.
The thing is that this really goes to a difference in philosophy about how voice assistants work and integrate with different 3rd party applications.
One thing I'm waiting for with Siri is the ability to set the colors and brightness of my Hue lights at the same time. I have to "Hey Siri" twice to do what should be a single command.
However, it is more expensive than the HomePod mini, not wireless (needs to be plugged in), & although it integrates tightly with iOS it can’t be as smooth as HomePod probably is (I haven’t tried the HomePod myself).
Also, Sonos speakers from my research outperform HomePod in terms of sound - but if you have data to suggest otherwise feel free to share
As far as privacy however, I definitely understand people's worry about the mic, but honestly I think it distracts from really looking at the data tracking practices and how much data is collected even without a mic. See [0]
I'm curious about Apple's data tracking, but based on their marketing page alone it definitely feels like they've given it a big consideration and it's not an afterthought. I cannot say the same for Sonos unfortunately. (I assume Google/Alexa etc are worse, but I don't use those, and didn't dig into it).
It's actually really decent at the use cases it's explicitly designed for, but completely falls apart if you have any edge cases. Bear in mind though, these are what Apple thinks of as edge cases like "What if I prefer Spotify over Apple Music," not necessarily a reasonable person's idea of an edge case.
I, personally, didn't notice much of a difference between the HomePod and the Sonos 5 though I know people who say the HomePod is markedly better. The Sonos, however, has a line-in and works with an Alexa unit if you have it (though, strangely, it's not built in). If not for the privacy sensitivity with Alexa I'd probably go for the Sonos, but the privacy and integration with the rest of the Apple ecosystem kind of tips it back to Apple for me.
I have only used an Echo in the past but fwiw Google does specify what they store and how they use it. https://store.google.com/magazine/google_nest_privacy
If you want better privacy, don't continue to let companies who lie about providing better privacy get away with it. So far, I haven't seen Google deliberately lie about the privacy of their services. That should be the bare minimum that we expect.
Apple, for its part, says "Apple doesn’t retain a history of what you’ve searched for or where you’ve been" and there's no reason to doubt it.
1: https://www.azag.gov/press-release/attorney-general-mark-brn...
I would just apply Hanlon's razor here. It most likely was a bug or oversight, if it had been some malicious evil scheme, I would assume more care would have been taken so that people don't find out.
Now, coming to the question of why do they even store it for opted in users?
Aside from potential ad relevance, I think it is simply because they power a lot of their features with context and they get better with data.
For example, if you search cheesecake on Google, the answer likely will be either a recipe or a restaurant. A restaurant search will likely be helped by data about previous visits and current location. A recipe search will be helped by past search result clicks and again location.
Do they really need to store this to serve search results? I don't think so. DDG works without them, but then again DDG performs very poor for queries like this which can be helped with context.
Note: I don't know how any of this exactly works, so these are just my assumptions.
From the lawsuit: for years, Google has known that the user experience they designed misleads and deceives users. The evidence obtained from within Google—such as internal emails, presentations, and memos—is overwhelming in this regard
They knew that they were deceiving users, and liked it that way.
An example of of how Google uses this data: Google will track if you click an ad for Cheesecake Factory and later physically visit one. This allows them to charge higher rates for ads. This isn't a secret, they brag about that capability. It's why they use so many dark patterns to push users to enable location tracking.
The GDPR consent prompt they recently implemented on Google & YouTube is not actually GDPR compliant and does not offer an easy way to opt-out.
I can go on and on. I'm not saying Apple is perfect (a lot of the points you raised are valid), but it's sure as hell better than a company whose entire bottom-line is based on stalking people.
Not defending them but is it forced? I remember being asked about it. I used to keep it off for a long time but keep it on now to keep track of places I visit.
> there is no technical reason for this.
I have seen them give you best time to leave from home/office for/after work based on developing traffic as notifications. Same for reminders of events in calendar with location context.
Also, just my assumption but they might be adding locality context to searches.
I also use it with Apple Music and from time to time as an AirPlay device. It also works really well for those purposes.
I don't typically use Siri for reading emails, text messages, or other things like that. I will ask it what the weather is as I walk out the door to determine whether I need to grab an umbrella or a hoodie or something. It also works well enough for that.
Assistant wise, you'd get better results from Google Assistant/Alexa. Apple has been lagging and playing catchup (from not having multiple timers in the initial HomePod release to adding voice recognition last year when Google had it earlier). The answers are more limited like your iOS Siri (don't expect anything better). Even worse, it seems like HomePod's Siri backend is different than say an iPad's which generally means it's a generation behind. For instance, the HomePod doesn't really support continuous conversations/follow-up questions.
Siri is ok finding popular music, but if you ask it to play the "The A-List: K-Pop playlist" vs. "The A-List: Pop Music" for instance, it's a tossup on which it chooses dependent on the alignment of the planets. The same goes for musician names where if it kinda sounds like the more popular musician, it will tend to choose the more popular one. Furthermore, if you have a specific version of a song (say acoustic/live version), then the HomePod always tends to pick the most popular version of the song even if you say "acoustic" or any other hints.
There are "Shortcuts" on the HomePod. You can use it to add Todos to third party apps (if you don't want to use the Apple Reminders integration) or play a podcast from a third party player from your iPhone/iPad. Not as useful as Alexa skills and every now and then it takes some magical phrase to correctly activate them. The main problem with Siri beyond lacking knowledge is that Siri lacks consistency. While it's ambitious in letting you say anything versus the narrower "scripted keywords" that Alexa understands, if you say something one day that it perfectly understands and repeated it exactly a week later, you have no idea if Siri will still understand you. I read about this complaint before against Siri, but having experienced it more than a few times now, it is incredibly frustrating. And Siri sometimes (unintentionally) mocks you by repeating all the main parts of your request back to you correctly, but it does the wrong thing.
Hardware wise, the HomePod sounds better than a Google Home, Google Home mini, and Echo Dot. But of course, the others are cheaper. Two HomePods do sound better than one. Besides the better output, the mics are significantly more sensitive even in a loud environment. If you're putting the HomePod in a noisy kitchen or playing music loudly, then a HomePod can pick up your voice without you shouting at it.
The Apple TV integration has gotten better, but even with two HomePods, a relatively cheap home theater setup sounds better and can be used for all your TV content instead of just from your Apple devices. If you place the HomePods right next to the TV at roughly the same height, they sound good but if you move them too low/high or around the room, it does sound "off". The whole spatial two HomePod thing kinda does work for music in a room, but for TV content, it does not.
Really the other assistants are as good if not better than the HomePod, then the only distinguishing (non-privacy) feature is if you want a premium and pretty good way to listen to Apple Music. Maybe a few more music services which hopefully will be available soon. I don't regret buying the HomePods at all because I do like listening to music on them, but all of the assistant and "smart" tech is available on your iPhone if it can hear you.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/26/apple-con...
https://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/halflife7283/images/b/b...
https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/28/20836760/apple-apology-si...
Apple is consistently worse on privacy than alternatives. Don't let them get away with it, or everybody will play Apple's game of just pretending that they care about privacy.
It's not even a close call, really.
Since you opened that door: Apple shares personal user data with the Chinese government. Call it what you will, but it's not a 'real honest commitment to privacy'.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/03/apple-privacy...
Among Apple, Amazon, and Google; only Apple's phones and tablets send your location to Apple every time you use GPS (even if you're not using an Apple app like Apple Maps!). Among those three companies, only Apple requires you to tell Apple every app you install. Among those three companies, only Apple requires you to further associate your banking details with all that data collection if you want to develop apps for your own device.
That is not an honest commitment to privacy. The other two companies let you opt out of all data collection entirely on your devices.
You're absolutely right that it's not a close call.
To millstone because downvotes prevent me from replying: that is data that the users voluntarily gave Google (like their email and documents), and Google collects that data from its services on iOS as well. On Android, you don't have to give Google any of your data at all. It even makes it easy to not send data to Google by letting you choose a default maps application, browser, etc. Compare to Apple, where you must give your location data to Apple if you want to know where you are on iOS, and there is nothing you can do about it. One is clearly worse. Making light of not being able to develop apps for your own devices without handing over banking details is something I never thought I would see on a forum for technologists.
This is a false statement that you continue to repeat.
Just as you did then, you continue to ignore the even more egregious practice of not only tracking everything you install but tying it to your identity.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24585353
Due to people downvoting my comments to the point that I cannot reply, I will explain why askafriend is wrong right here (though I already explained why they are wrong in my GP post, which they also ignored in their response to that post). Disabling Apple Maps from getting your location does not stop Apple from getting your location. When any app gets your location on iOS, Apple also gets your location. This is explained clearly in the link contained in this comment, which askafriend ignored. Both Amazon and Google allow you to get your location without telling anybody.
But that’s the least of it:
The text you quote in you your linked comment nowhere states that your location is sent to Apple every time it is requested.
That’s not a quibble. It’s much more serious
You wrote comment so you must know that what you just linked doesn’t support your actual claim, so it creates the impression you are doing this to be intentionally misleading.
That's a really wacky contortion. Whose location is it then?
> nowhere states that your location is sent to Apple every time it is requested.
You're right. It's worse than that. I pointed out in that post that Apple periodically gets your location even if no app requests it. Apple also says that you consent to having your location collected every time another app requests it, so even if it is not true now (which you have not been able to show and which would mean they wouldn't need such a scary consent, so I highly doubt it), it can be true tomorrow.
The actually privacy-respecting Android devices from Amazon and Google do not suffer from this issue. Nor do they require you to tell anybody if you install an app on your device, tied to your identity, which you have once again ignored.
2. “so even if it is not true now”
This is you admitting that you actually don’t know that they are doing what you said they were doing.
You actually have no idea what Apple is collecting. You are just speculating based on a legal disclaimer about what they could be doing.
3. “it can be true tomorrow.”
Again you admit that you know that it may not be true.
Asserting something to be true, when you know that you really don’t know whether it is true, is called lying.
You lied when you made the claim earlier in the thread, and you doubled down on that lie by asserting that it was not false, when you were challenged about the truth of your statement.
That is not the data that is stored. You are deliberately lying because you yourself said that an encrypted identifier is stored with the data. As I already proved to you earlier, that encrypted identifier can be deanonymized by Apple.
> This is you admitting that you actually don’t know that they are doing what you said they were doing.
I showed that they were doing worse than what I had originally claimed, and you ignored that.
> You lied
You're the one who lied in my previous comment. Go see what it says. You can't even argue semantics like you're doing here.
Remember, the whole point is that on Google and Amazon allow you to turn off this data collection entirely, which is significantly better for privacy, and you have not been able to argue otherwise. Worse, you continue to ignore the app data tied to your identity. You are arguing for a bad actor, which makes you look absolutely silly, like somebody who was duped into overpaying for a worse device who feels the need to justify their foolishness to the world.
By the way, here's proof that they're not just making you consent to that scary privacy disclaimer for shits and giggles as you hoped against hope that they did: https://www.wired.com/2011/04/apple-iphone-tracking/
Go into Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services -> Maps and toggle the setting to "Never".
The full set of options are:
* Never
* Ask Next Time
* While Using the App
* While Using the App or Widgets
and there is also a toggle to turn off Precise Location so that apps only get approximate location.
Go nuts with the options.
I just tried it and I can use the Maps app just fine with location services set to "Never".
Picking some narrow definition that fits your point isn't going to convince anyone of your grand statement. It just comes off as disingenuous.
They periodically send the location of nearby cell-towers and wifi hotspots (all public information) back to a crowdsourced database. _Your_ identity isn't associated with any of it. Apple doesn't know who you are or where your phone is. They do not store GPS coordinates. A single cell tower is nowhere near accurate enough to determine the location of the phone, etc etc.
Google/Android do this too: https://qz.com/1131515/google-collects-android-users-locatio...
You can also entirely disable location services if you're uncomfortable with this and that'd stop it.
You're weaponizing people's ignorance and the complexity of the technical details.
With your GPS location. That's how they figure out the location of those devices.
> _Your_ identity isn't associated with any of it.
As I showed in the link you continue to ignore, an easily deanonymized identifier is associated with that data in order to prevent people from sending junk data.
> Google/Android do this too:
The whole point is that on Android, you can opt out. Android respects users privacy enough to even ask them if they want to opt out on initial setup.
> You can also entirely disable location services if you're uncomfortable with this and that'd stop it.
As I explained in the link, disabling location services means you can't get your location at all. Not so with Android.
> You're weaponizing people's ignorance and the complexity of the technical details.
I'm fixing your and zepto's ignorance in order to protect people's privacy against bad actors like Apple.
The principle of Privacy isn't the act of giving people options (Facebook uses this excuse all the time - "but users had the option! not our fault!").
The principle is designing privacy into the default way people use things. At an ecosystem level the privacy awareness level and incentive structure is clear between the big companies.
Nitpicking and hyperbole isn't helping make your point like you think it is. Do you think my mom knows how to opt out of something like that on Android or if that's even possible? No. But she's IS going to be using Apple Maps by default and have a heightened level of privacy all the same.
Privacy is taking care of your entire customer base and making intelligent default considerations. Not giving nerds a pane of options.
And Android puts it right there in device setup, allowing them tonset up their privacy preferences correctly the way people use things.
> Do you think my mom knows how to opt out of something like that on Android or if that's even possible?
If she uses Android, she would. It asks her right there in setup. Do you think your mom knows that Apple tracks every location she has ever been, and she can't make them stop? Even you don't know it, and you're arguably tech literate.
The correct way to handle privacy is giving users the choice between usability and privacy. Android does this correctly. Google's Android devices default to usable, which gives you services that are actually useful unlike the iOS apps that are missing functionality, and allows the user to install apps that are actually private and set them as default if they prefer. Other Android distributions default to the other side. iOS is worse both for people who value functionality and for people who value privacy because it gives you defaults that are neither private nor usable that you cannot change.
As a start, I'll paste some information from Apple and TechCrunch around when they rebuilt maps from the ground up in 2018:
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“We specifically don’t collect data, even from point A to point B,” notes Cue. “We collect data — when we do it — in an anonymous fashion, in subsections of the whole, so we couldn’t even say that there is a person that went from point A to point B. We’re collecting the segments of it. As you can imagine, that’s always been a key part of doing this. Honestly, we don’t think it buys us anything [to collect more]. We’re not losing any features or capabilities by doing this.”
The segments that he is referring to are sliced out of any given person’s navigation session. Neither the beginning or the end of any trip is ever transmitted to Apple. Rotating identifiers, not personal information, are assigned to any data or requests sent to Apple and it augments the “ground truth” data provided by its own mapping vehicles with this “probe data” sent back from iPhones.
Because only random segments of any person’s drive is ever sent and that data is completely anonymized, there is never a way to tell if any trip was ever a single individual. The local system signs the IDs and only it knows to whom that ID refers. Apple is working very hard here to not know anything about its users. This kind of privacy can’t be added on at the end, it has to be woven in at the ground level.
The secret sauce here is what Apple calls probe data. Essentially little slices of vector data that represent direction and speed transmitted back to Apple completely anonymized with no way to tie it to a specific user or even any given trip. It’s reaching in and sipping a tiny amount of data from millions of users instead, giving it a holistic, real-time picture without compromising user privacy.
All of this, of course, is governed by whether you opted into location services, and can be toggled off using the maps location toggle in the Privacy section of settings.
Apple says that this will have a near zero effect on battery life or data usage, because you’re already using the ‘maps’ features when any probe data is shared and it’s a fraction of what power is being drawn by those activities.
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Impressed they can do that when I’m using offline mapping in an area with no mobile signal.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/06/the-c... gets into the crypto side of it.
So yes, information about location is being sent to Apple. No, it's not useful for Apple and it is encrypted in a way that Apple can't get it the underlying data.
> Apple returns the encrypted location of the laptop to your iPad, which can use its private key to decrypt it and tell you the laptop's last known location. Meanwhile, Apple has never seen the decrypted location, and since hashing functions are designed to be irreversible, it can't even use the hashed public keys to collect any information about where the device has been.
To sibling commenter: my comment is based on a correct understanding of Location Services, not on anything to do with Find My Device. You don't have to put words in my mouth, especially when I have already explained it using my own words elsewhere in the thread.
But Apple requires a credit card to sign up for a developer account so obviously they're much worse.
And this is ignoring the tons of non-consensual tracking, such as purchasing credit card history, the DoubleClick/GTags/Analytics that infest the web, etc.
Maybe you can get an Android phone and thoroughly deGooglefy it by flashing LineageOS or whatever. I'll give you that, you can't do that with an iPhone. If that's your bar, then so be it. iPhones are not for you.
But the vast vast majority of users will have their privacy better protected by Apple's location services, which don't track you, than Google's pushy and deceptive tracking.
That lawsuit is completely irrelevant to the question of which devices provide more privacy.
> Maybe you can get an Android phone and thoroughly deGooglefy it by flashing LineageOS or whatever.
You don't have to do that. Just don't use apps that use Google services. Done. It's that simple. On Apple devices, you have no choice but to give up your privacy. Worse, you give up your privacy to use garbage services that are less useful than their Google and Amazon counterparts.