Google announced today that its Googe Home digital personal assistant appliance now supports multiple users, answering one of my key complaints. I believe it is the first such device to offer this support.
“We’re adding the ability for up to six people to connect their account to one Google Home,” Google product manager Yury Pinsky explains. “So now when I ask my Google Assistant for help, it can distinguish my voice from my wife’s and I can hear my own personal playlists, my own commute time, my own schedule and more.”
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This support was leaked earlier when users caught sight of it in the Google Home (formerly Chromecast) app. It works as you might expect: You have to train the app to differentiate your voice from the voices of other connected accounts, and then it will differentiate between you going forward.
Google says that multi-account support in Google Home will start rolling out today in the U.S. And it will expand to the U.K. in the coming months.
Well, that’s another nail in Cortana’s coffin. Anyone over at Microsoft worried about this at all? Anyone?
Bats
<p>This is what Paul called as "the FATAL flaw" before he easily gave up on it and promptly returned it. It was never FATAL, it just wasn't implemented. Google does this. Of course Paul never knew that, nor did he even try to do any research about it. He simply thought that the FATAL flaw was unfixable. Paul's FATAL flaw is his rush to judgment. Add this to the list of wrong assessments made by Paul.</p>
Lateef Alabi-Oki
<blockquote><a href="#99211"><em>In reply to Bats:</em></a></blockquote><p><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">Anybody who knows and follows Google knows they put out half-baked beta products to gather feedback. Then they iterate aggressively. So much so that their initial products, sometimes, don't even resemble the final ones. It is incredibly shortsighted to count out Google from the first iteration of their products. </span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">Gmail, Google Maps, Google Chrome, Android to mention a few, are examples of some of their products that started out with a whimper, but that have now become the top services in their respective categories. Assuming they don't abandon the product, Google will patiently iterate until said product is the best in the industry. </span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">I've just learned to be patient with them. Even when they make frustratingly obvious blunders like the fact that I still can't manage my calendar, set reminders, or take notes from Google Home. Or the fact that Google Home didn't integrate with enough Google services from the get go.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">Sometimes you don't even appreciate or understand their products until years down the line. ChromeOS didn't make sense to anybody 5 years ago. Now, thanks to the necessity of high-speed internet, the ubiquity of mobile devices, and the reality of the cloud, people get it. </span></p>