7 ms·

"But it’s sort of funny considering hardly any of Google’s other products work offline. Are you going to dictate into a shared document while you’re offline? Wr

"But it’s sort of funny considering hardly any of Google’s other products work offline. Are you going to dictate into a shared document while you’re offline? Write an email? Ask for a conversion between liters and cups? You’re going to need a connection for that!" While offline, you might write email drafts, your blog, or even a book: https://medium.com/@augustbirch/what-i-learned-writing-an-entire-novel-on-my-phone-f1655d09b00b https://medium.com/@augustbirch/what-i-learned-writing-an-en... What's missing is the ability to make edits using your phone. You can probably speak at over 100 words a minute but then you need to stop to bring up the software keyboard.

semi-extrinsic 8y ago
FWIW Google Translate (including the "translate from picture" feature) is an example of a product that has had offline option for quite some time. You have to tell it to download for each language pair IIRC.
- ohnoesjmr 8y ago
  Can't wait for different language models to be available to download for recognition, so one could have a genuine offline dictation between languages.
  - nicoburns 8y ago
    Offline voice-to-voice translation would pretty damn useful.
maxxxxx 8y ago
Google Maps has an excellent offline mode on iOS and Android. I wish Apple Maps had that too.
- int_19h 8y ago
  If only it didn't force-expire downloaded maps after a while...
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    I get updates every 30 days. Do they expire if you don’t update?
    - gruez 8y ago
      Yes
      - maxxxxx 8y ago
        That's stupid. I do offline maps mainly for the times when I don't have a good connection. It makes no sense to lose the maps when you are spending an extended amount of time off-grid. That's exactly when you need offline maps.
        toomuchtodo 8y ago
        License issues. Wouldn't happen if all the data was OpenStreetMap and Google data only.
        sliken 8y ago
        I suspect very very few people pay to have a smart phone and don't get it on WAN or wifi at least once a month.
        int_19h 8y ago
        If I remember correctly, the maps aren't auto-updated by default; you do get notifications, but those are too easy to ignore (esp. since Maps is chatty in general). And then for someone on an expensive metered or slow connection - which is a lot of people in the developing countries - they might not want auto-update at all. So if they didn't notice expiration, they'll find out that their maps aren't there next time they try to navigate offline.
  - beefsack 8y ago
    My offline maps expire in years, not in months or weeks. I'm not sure that's a huge issue, roads change over time and eventually maps will be so old that they are harmful.
- atomical 8y ago
  It's one of those features that makes one think... Why am I being notified about this at all? Can't this be taken care of without my input?
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    I am being notified but the process starts automatically. No input needed.
    - atomical 8y ago
      Why bother you then?
  - sliken 8y ago
    Yes, there's two settings in maps under offline maps. You can set it to auto update and download if you wish.
mellow-lake-day 8y ago
For the record it wasn't always this way, the last couple of years though they have made a lot of improvements on this front. I think it may have something to do with Google's "next billion of devices" being in countries with bad connectivity. With that said I especially like the Google Maps offline features which have been added recently. You can even have it calculate driving directions completely offline if you have the starting and ending addresses.
ehsankia 8y ago
The offline aspect is hardly the main draw here though. As mentioned earlier in the article, the latency reduction is huge. Another aspect they didn't really cover is privacy implications. Lastly, you may not be offline, but dodgy connections can also be a pain if you need a stable stream of packets going back and forth.
- ksec 8y ago
  >As mentioned earlier in the article, the latency reduction is huge. Well, on macOS offline voice recognition is actually much slower than online. Not to mention the choice of words and Vocab is quite limited. I love to get an offline version, but so far every online version seems to be better.
  - i_cant_speel 8y ago
    I don't think that means this one will be slower. Google has always been the leader in the voice recognition field. I'll bet they'll do offline processing better than Apple.
    - ksec 8y ago
      >Google has always been the leader in the voice recognition field Interestingly may be only for English. In my experience Apple is doing far better in Japanese, Chinese ( Both Mandarin and Cantonese )
- pault 8y ago
  I refuse to put an amazon/apple/google surveillance device in my home, so I am very interested in a DIY digital assistant device. I'm aware of a few options but it seems like offline voice recognition is always a little sub-par. I am really looking forward to the day when an offline, open source digital assistant can compare in quality to a proprietary/cloud device.
  - snaky 8y ago
    It shouldn't be offline, using recognition online but at your own cloud would be the way too.
bufferoverflow 8y ago
It means google doesn't need to pay for all the servers busy doing speech recognition. They shifted that work to the user's device.
- jasonvorhe 8y ago
  It's hilarious how they can't do anything right. If it's in the cloud it's evil because Google, if it happens on device it's evil because Google.
  - bufferoverflow 8y ago
    Who said it's evil?
jfoster 8y ago
Most of their products work offline and sync when a connection is regained. That includes Google Docs and Gmail.

semi-extrinsic 8y ago

FWIW Google Translate (including the "translate from picture" feature) is an example of a product that has had offline option for quite some time. You have to tell it to download for each language pair IIRC.

ohnoesjmr 8y ago
Can't wait for different language models to be available to download for recognition, so one could have a genuine offline dictation between languages.
- nicoburns 8y ago
  Offline voice-to-voice translation would pretty damn useful.

maxxxxx 8y ago

Google Maps has an excellent offline mode on iOS and Android. I wish Apple Maps had that too.

int_19h 8y ago
If only it didn't force-expire downloaded maps after a while...
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  I get updates every 30 days. Do they expire if you don’t update?
  - gruez 8y ago
    Yes
    - maxxxxx 8y ago
      That's stupid. I do offline maps mainly for the times when I don't have a good connection. It makes no sense to lose the maps when you are spending an extended amount of time off-grid. That's exactly when you need offline maps.
      - toomuchtodo 8y ago
        License issues. Wouldn't happen if all the data was OpenStreetMap and Google data only.
      - sliken 8y ago
        I suspect very very few people pay to have a smart phone and don't get it on WAN or wifi at least once a month.
        int_19h 8y ago
        If I remember correctly, the maps aren't auto-updated by default; you do get notifications, but those are too easy to ignore (esp. since Maps is chatty in general). And then for someone on an expensive metered or slow connection - which is a lot of people in the developing countries - they might not want auto-update at all. So if they didn't notice expiration, they'll find out that their maps aren't there next time they try to navigate offline.
- beefsack 8y ago
  My offline maps expire in years, not in months or weeks. I'm not sure that's a huge issue, roads change over time and eventually maps will be so old that they are harmful.
atomical 8y ago
It's one of those features that makes one think... Why am I being notified about this at all? Can't this be taken care of without my input?
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  I am being notified but the process starts automatically. No input needed.
  - atomical 8y ago
    Why bother you then?
- sliken 8y ago
  Yes, there's two settings in maps under offline maps. You can set it to auto update and download if you wish.

mellow-lake-day 8y ago

For the record it wasn't always this way, the last couple of years though they have made a lot of improvements on this front. I think it may have something to do with Google's "next billion of devices" being in countries with bad connectivity. With that said I especially like the Google Maps offline features which have been added recently. You can even have it calculate driving directions completely offline if you have the starting and ending addresses.

ehsankia 8y ago

The offline aspect is hardly the main draw here though. As mentioned earlier in the article, the latency reduction is huge. Another aspect they didn't really cover is privacy implications. Lastly, you may not be offline, but dodgy connections can also be a pain if you need a stable stream of packets going back and forth.

ksec 8y ago
>As mentioned earlier in the article, the latency reduction is huge. Well, on macOS offline voice recognition is actually much slower than online. Not to mention the choice of words and Vocab is quite limited. I love to get an offline version, but so far every online version seems to be better.
- i_cant_speel 8y ago
  I don't think that means this one will be slower. Google has always been the leader in the voice recognition field. I'll bet they'll do offline processing better than Apple.
  - ksec 8y ago
    >Google has always been the leader in the voice recognition field Interestingly may be only for English. In my experience Apple is doing far better in Japanese, Chinese ( Both Mandarin and Cantonese )
pault 8y ago
I refuse to put an amazon/apple/google surveillance device in my home, so I am very interested in a DIY digital assistant device. I'm aware of a few options but it seems like offline voice recognition is always a little sub-par. I am really looking forward to the day when an offline, open source digital assistant can compare in quality to a proprietary/cloud device.
- snaky 8y ago
  It shouldn't be offline, using recognition online but at your own cloud would be the way too.

bufferoverflow 8y ago

It means google doesn't need to pay for all the servers busy doing speech recognition. They shifted that work to the user's device.

jasonvorhe 8y ago
It's hilarious how they can't do anything right. If it's in the cloud it's evil because Google, if it happens on device it's evil because Google.
- bufferoverflow 8y ago
  Who said it's evil?

jfoster 8y ago

Most of their products work offline and sync when a connection is regained. That includes Google Docs and Gmail.