I'd like to reiterate my plea for supporting the Google Home and Google Now APIs.
- Google already knows everything about me (something I rely upon many times a day), and I'd rather not replicate any information to third-party services (Amazon/Alexa, Apple/Siri, Microsoft/Cortana, or anyone else).
It's not that I trust Google, it's just that it's safer to trust as few entities as possible with your personal information.
- Google has already trained me how to talk to it and always be understood. ;^)
More importantly, it seems each day Google learns how to understand increasingly complex language usage: They're way ahead of everyone else when it comes to abstract comprehension of pretty much unlimited vocabulary.
In part, this is due to Google's deep neural network language systems: They are truly staggering in their complexity and capability, and in over a dozen languages!
Another part is the enormous context Google has available about my past and future plans (calendar), prior Google interactions (via Google Now, Google Goggles, etc.), recent communications (email, phone calls, texts, etc.), recent purchases (Android Pay), and to the internet as a whole.
So, a valid Google Now request when standing in front of the refrigerator would be: "OK Google. Remind me to buy OJ when I'm near a supermarket." or "OK Google. Add eggs to my shopping list." (My ability to consistently feed myself actually depends on this: I'm lousy at manually managing shopping lists.)
Later I can ask: "OK Google. How many reminders do I have?" or "OK Google: What's on my shopping list?" and it will do so without me having to manually open Keep (and I had to check and verify that that's the app that contains the list).
I care about information, not the app or database or silo it is prisoned within.
I'd also like to be able to simply tell my house, rather than have to always tote my phone around with me while at home.
A recent update to Google Maps automatically fires up Maps whenever I drive or ride my bike (when I start moving fast enough). I want to be able to use the "Maps detects departure" event on my phone combined with the "at home, alone" state of my home automation system to trigger turning off the lights and locking the door, in case I forgot. Or at least prompt me to give the appropriate command. (Yes, this could also be triggered by the phone or car going out of Bluetooth range of the house, but I prefer the Buck Rogers approach.)
There is no way the other voice services will ever have access to enough information to do all that. (At least, I hope not!) And I don't want to have to bounce between multiple voice services to get things done.
One Computer Overlord is quite enough, thank you.
It's name is Google.
