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Alexa and Google Assistant Have a Problem: People Aren't Sticking With Voice Apps They Try (recode.net)
Amazon Echo and Google Home were the breakaway hits of the holiday shopping season. But both devices -- and the voice technologies that power them -- have some major hurdles to overcome if they want to keep both consumers and software developers engaged. From a report on Recode: That's one of the big takeaways from a new report that an industry startup, VoiceLabs, released on Monday. For starters, 69 percent of the 7,000-plus Alexa "Skills" -- voice apps, if you will -- have zero or one customer review, signaling low usage. What's more, when developers for Alexa and its competitor, Google Assistant, do get someone to enable a voice app, there's only a 3 percent chance, on average, that the person will be an active user by week 2, according to the report. (There are outliers that have week 2 retention rates of more than 20 percent.) For comparison's sake, Android and iOS apps have average retention rates of 13 percent and 11 percent, respectively, one week after first use. "There are lots of [voice] apps out there, but they are zombie apps," VoiceLabs co-founder Adam Marchick said in an interview.
It can also require you to be careful how you pronounce the request, and the exact phrasing you use. The devices may advertise themselves as "natural language" interaction, but understanding a phrase when pauses for commas and such come into play, or overcoming the speaker's personal accent or speech issues isn't that easy..
Currently, these so-called "intelligent assistants" are little more than toys. You play with them for a couple of days, they are kind of fun, but then the novelty of the toy wears off. They are OK when it comes to rather specific questions, and all but useless for issues that require a minimum of intelligence.I expect that, one day, they will live up to their name. As of today, they are toys.
I am almost never in a place where I would feel comfortable talking aloud to me phone. Should I get up and go somewhere private to talk to my phone, or just stay here and use the screen? Hmm, that is such a tough decision.
Not energy. But privacy and respect for others. Voice interface is popular in TV because it help move the plot. But in real life like translucent displays. Even with technology working perfectly just get in the way of civil life.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Voice control is still too unreliable for me. About half the times I try to use it, I end up repeating myself with different variations, trying to get the exact right phrasing it wants. I usually end up having to do it manually anyway. I might as well just skip those step and go right to the finger.
When it works right the first time, it's like magic, but that is so rare.
It's one thing when everybody you see is bent over their phone tapping away and ignoring everything else in the world. But it's a lot worse when they're talking at their phones.
GUIs have been getting worse in the last few years. Sometimes significantly so.
Wake me up when there's software that runs on my own local server and can do all that without telling Amazon or Google all about my shopping preferences, schedule, movie preferences, lights, heat, and level of fitness.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz