Encounters of an Artificial Kind
A few nights ago as I was about to go to bed, I got an alert from Google about my planned train trip the next morning. The only problem was that I supposed to travel by the night train. I quickly checked my booking, and there it was. I had accidentally booked a ticket on the 9 am train instead of the 9 pm one. Fortunately, I was able to get a ticket on the 9 pm train.
As I completed the revised booking, two things struck me. The Artificial Intelligence era has already begun. Google’s robot may not be AI in the true sense, but it had gone through my email, and sent me a message that just saved me a bit of hassle and money. The other thing was I had expected Apple to crack the AI puzzle first, but it seems to have missed that bus.
What made this even more poignant was that I got the notification from Google on my iPhone. I prefer the iPhone and iOS to an Android phone, but Google’s apps are slowly taking over my iPhone.
There’s nothing wrong with my iPhone’s reminder app. I just have to remember to set myself a reminder. But I often forget to set that, due to the usual everyday chaos where people, vehicles, calls, emails, social media pings, overdue bill notifications are all constantly fighting for my attention. That’s where Google is so useful. It sniffs out emails related to my travel ticket bookings, and sends me alerts on my phone in advance. And it does this without my having to constantly ask Google to do it.
So how did Google come to be so omnipresent on my iPhone?
It happened gradually. Once upon a time, I used to stick with Apple’s stock apps on my iPhone for everything. My logic was software designed by Apple works best on hardware designed by Apple. This might have been true in the early days of the App Store. But soon apps began appearing that could do more things than the iPhone, or do things better than it.
I recall being upset with Apple’s Mail app as it couldn’t find stuff in my mailbox. This forced me to access my gmail on my Mac which was an unnecessary hassle. It was only when Google’s launched its Gmail app that I found a solution on the phone. It was my first Google app on the iPhone.
Google Maps was the second. Apple Maps just didn’t have enough data on Indian roads and places. Some time later, the Apple Maps debacle happened, and even Apple’s loyal fans switched to Google maps. I believe Apple Maps has gotten better now. But it’s too late for Apple to get me back. I’m used to Google Maps, and have dozens of my locations saved in it.
Apple learned a valuable lesson from that disaster. Keeping new product features secret to prevent it being stolen has its advantages. But not if it comes at the cost of releasing a half baked product to the public. One bad experience with Apple is all it takes to lose a customer. That made Apple doubly aware of how important it is to avoid releasing your product unless it’s been thoroughly tested and rid of all bugs. I believe that’s why Apple opened up iOS beta testing to the public.
In the meanwhile, I had started using Google Docs and Google Sheets at work as they allowed multiple users to work on the same document. So when Google released iOS apps for the same, my work days with Pages and Numbers were numbered. They are great apps and I still use them for my own personal use. I’m not sure if they have the multiuser function now but it’s no longer of interest to me. All my docs are on Google and it’s hassle to switch. A customer once lost is indeed a customer that’s hard to get back.
Google calendar was the next app I moved to. It made sense as it tied up with my Gmail, and automatically notified me about my schedule, travel bookings, courier deliveries and even birthdays.
Among the intelligent personal assistants (or voice assistants) which are what the layman sees as AI, Google Now (or Google as it’s now called) has an edge over Siri, as it handles my Indian accent better. Saying the same sentence repeatedly to Siri is something I quickly tire off. And you have to have a really thick skin to keep repeating commands to Siri in the presence of bystanders. Other voice assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Microsoft’s Cortana also seemed to be doing as well, if not better than Siri despite the latter having a head start.
Apple may have learnt from the Maps fiasco, but there’s another major obstacle that has hindered Apple’s progress, and that is storage. iPhones cost the earth in India (the iPhone 7 Plus base model goes for around $1077 because of taxes). When you pay that price, you can’t be blamed for expecting to get a fair amount of iCloud storage, without having to pay extra. But Apple is still stuck at a measly 5GB of free storage.
This has opened the door for Google to lure me away from Apple with another terrific service. Google Photos allows unlimited backup of all photos I take on my iPhone, with the only rider being quality is downgraded. But that’s fine for 95% of the pictures I shoot. So I have disconnected my iCloud photo storage and switched to Google Photos. It helps that the backup happens automatically without me having to do anything, and all my photos are freely accessible from any of my devices. So all I need when I need to see a photo I shot, is check my Google Photos. Google Drive is also an excellent storage service that made me drop not just iCloud but Dropbox too.
Google Play is the latest to land on my iPhone because of storage. Apple Music is reasonably priced and offers streaming. Google doesn’t offer streaming as yet but as of now, you can sign up for free and upload up to 50000 songs. My music library is online, and accessible anywhere for free, if you have access to wifi or data on the phone.
Apple does have a valid reason for why they charge for storage and Google doesn’t. Basically it costs money, and Apple has no way to recover it unlike Google who can recover their investment via their ads.
Unfortunately for Apple, I don’t mind Google using my data. If Google does misuse my data, I may change my mind though there is a possibility that it may be too late by then. But that’s a risk I’m willing to take. Possibly because I’ve been using Google’s apps for the last ten years and have never as yet encountered a case of serious misuse of my data.
I believe data is the key reason why Google is racing ahead of Apple in AI. Apart from having to consciously set a reminder of my travel date, I might have erroneously set a wrong time. Google on the other hand, reminded me about the trip without any inputs from me. The fact that it got the info from my email means it eliminated the chance of human error.
All this put together is why Google is all over my iPhone. So much so that it’s no longer just an Apple, but more of a hybrid between Apple and Google.
Maybe I should just start calling it my Goople phone.