4 ms·

I would assume they are saying that it's a whole lot easier for the average person to say: "Please remind me every day at 5pm to water the plants", or "Please

by ddeck 8y ago

I would assume they are saying that it's a whole lot easier for the average person to say: "Please remind me every day at 5pm to water the plants", or "Please play this song at medium volume every morning at 7am" than to learn how to do the equivalent in whatever operating system their device uses, and I'd tend to agree. Cron is certainly a much higher bar than learning to use the alarm app in your phone, but the point remains, particularly in a home context.

rapind 8y ago
But who's using cron to set a reminder or an alarm on their phone?! That can't be it, but if it is, then they are ironically overstating. I mean you can use the GUI (launching apps etc.), or literally just type "remind me every day at 5pm to water the plants" into the home screen search bar (on Android at least). The voice recognition and the assistant parts are decoupled.
- calculi 8y ago
  You two are talking about different groups of people. crontab/Linux/Win: definitely needs learning smartphone: a little bit easier to use, open an app and everything is set visual assistant: out of box for being ready to use. I taught one of my family members about using PC and Android, and found that almost everything needs to be explained. For example: - What's Google/Microsoft for? (Yes, even the giants in tech may never be heard for some people and it's common) - Browser? And there are many of them? (Not everyone has a computer and Internet access) - URL? What is that? I cannot even spell it! (This is more complicated and requires people to remember the addresses of tens of commonly used websites, btw, what's a bookmark!?) - register? with what? bank account or passport? (if someone doesn't have a email account, it's likely that they have no idea about the process of register, activation.) - App market? wait a second, what's an app? (not to mention built-in ones and those from 3rd parties) The thing is Alexa, google home and many others provide a unified, easy to use substitute(well, I have to admit these devices are pretty dumb these days. So they are not 100 percent alternatives). The only requirement is being able to speak in a clear way, which is true for almost everyone. PS: I don't have any of these devices. As a hard-core programmer, my choice is, without any doubt, *nix, shell, etc. GUI sucks ;-)

by ddeck 8y ago

rapind 8y ago

But who's using cron to set a reminder or an alarm on their phone?! That can't be it, but if it is, then they are ironically overstating. I mean you can use the GUI (launching apps etc.), or literally just type "remind me every day at 5pm to water the plants" into the home screen search bar (on Android at least). The voice recognition and the assistant parts are decoupled.

calculi 8y ago
You two are talking about different groups of people. crontab/Linux/Win: definitely needs learning smartphone: a little bit easier to use, open an app and everything is set visual assistant: out of box for being ready to use. I taught one of my family members about using PC and Android, and found that almost everything needs to be explained. For example: - What's Google/Microsoft for? (Yes, even the giants in tech may never be heard for some people and it's common) - Browser? And there are many of them? (Not everyone has a computer and Internet access) - URL? What is that? I cannot even spell it! (This is more complicated and requires people to remember the addresses of tens of commonly used websites, btw, what's a bookmark!?) - register? with what? bank account or passport? (if someone doesn't have a email account, it's likely that they have no idea about the process of register, activation.) - App market? wait a second, what's an app? (not to mention built-in ones and those from 3rd parties) The thing is Alexa, google home and many others provide a unified, easy to use substitute(well, I have to admit these devices are pretty dumb these days. So they are not 100 percent alternatives). The only requirement is being able to speak in a clear way, which is true for almost everyone. PS: I don't have any of these devices. As a hard-core programmer, my choice is, without any doubt, *nix, shell, etc. GUI sucks ;-)