Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Google's Echo Rival is a 'Dressed-up' Version of Chromecast
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
That steaming stick is dog-slow btw. But forget about facts, we at knee-jerk MR only care for bullet points.
Its a voice assistant only, not a fully fledged computer where u install apps that need the memory to run, but we also want it cheap too
Chromecast currently sells at $35. That would mean Google being able to significantly undercut the $179 Amazon Echo. Notably, the Chromecast is also one of Google's most successful hardware products, selling 3 million units in the past three years.
And how much do they lose on each one of these $35 devices? “We’ll make the losses up with volume!"
Google probably could to increase memory in this,,, loose profit, but as always they made it up in adverting..
Each use of this device Google gets paid from advertisers from using their product. The only difference would be ads are not displayed visually... it's all done on the back-end.
Image the horror is Google did that and users thought Google was spying on them if they saw the transmission,
"Hey, this isn't going directly to Google, its going via an advertiser first before Google processes it"
Each use of this device Google gets paid from advertisers from using their product. The only difference would be ads are not displayed visually... it's all done on the back-end.
Image the horror is Google did that and users thought Google was spying on them if they saw the transmission,
"Hey, this isn't going directly to Google, its going via an advertiser first before Google processes it"
Not sure which Chromecast you're using but mine has no problems with speed, Netflix and YouTube don't take any longer to buffer than watching it on my quad core desktop. Maybe it's your internet connection?
Google does sell your data, they don't sell your personal information. It's you that is deliberately being daft.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Hmmm, 99-cent Renuzit air freshener...
For securing the technology against theft, I wonder if one could get or print a Renuzit wrapper for an "in plain sight" effort?
No, make them work with Home Automation, and it will win any war.
Apple has HomeKit going... and Google?
That's strange, are you using the first gen, which was slow at times? The second gen is much faster. Apps that support pre-caching load content very fast, like Netflix. Is yours on 2.4Ghz, is that wifi crowded? The new gen uses 5Ghz too.
They don't lose anything, and they don't make much. It's a break even proposition. This is based on iFixIt's teardown and average cost to consumer. If you are buying in bulk you're more likely to make a little on these devices.
More RAM doesn't automatically imply the device is inefficient. That's such crazy logic. Is the iPad Air 2 less efficient than the first gen iPad? Best guess is in a Home Assistant device if you want to hold high quality audio such that you download content data (weather, news) and use pre-stored words/speech to play that data quickly rather than downloading audio from Google's servers for each query. That's just an example I made up. The other possibility is caching information you ask for daily (news, traffic report, weather). Or having multiple user profiles.
Chromebooks, for example, don't have fast processors (they use Celerons, Pentiums, most of them) and they can still do 90% of what my parents need. Does that mean it's more efficient than a Macbook Pro? No, not at all. Different uses, different needs, different designs.
I was using Google's vocabulary - they don't use the word "sell" in their blurb but "share"!!
"Sharing" implies that data isn't sold - which of course it is. That's Google's, Facebook et al source of income - Ads.
Apple has a high price point and an inferior voice search service (hopefully that will change in a couple of weeks!)
I was using Google's vocabulary - they don't use the word "sell" in their blurb but "share"!!
Oh you two and your silliness. At no time does Google SELL your DATA. Advertisers buy an ad and request customer segments that match specific criteria. Or advertisers have a tracking pixel on their website and they retarget you based on information they already have on you (what products you looked at, etc). Google takes their money and then serves you an ad. At no time does an advertiser get any of your data.
Yep, and you guys eagerly call them out every time they do. Yet (Surprise! Surprise!) everyone seems to be rushing to Google's defense for their repackaging.
I think they should make it available in a choice of looking like one of the Fifth Element stones.
You'd activate it the first time, by blowing on it, or striking a match, or ...
You'd activate it the first time, by blowing on it, or striking a match, or ...
I'm interested to see Apple's take on this market segment, actually. Amazon's Alexa seemed like it had some of the same limitations/mistakes Amazon made when they released their own smartphone a while ago. The device felt too Amazon-centric. Google is in a far better position to release Google-centric devices, because Google provides so many services that end-users want (everything from maps and GPS to a web-based Office suite). Amazon, at its core, is just a sales platform - and all the hardware it sells (like those Amazon buttons you press to instantly re-order a product) try to drive additional sales.
Apple is somewhere in-between. Like Amazon, its devices try to boost its sales of media (music, movies, etc.) -- but Apple doesn't try to sell you "everything under the sun" from vacuum cleaners to car parts. It has a computer and consumer electronics focus.
IMO, the entire HomeKit thing hasn't been given nearly enough attention by Apple, but I see that slowly changing as 3rd. party products supporting it mature and gain traction. I'm still a little fuzzy on the details, but wasn't the original plan for HomeKit talking about requiring an AppleTV on the home network to act as the "bridge" that allowed HomeKit commands to be handled when issued from outside the local network? In any case, it definitely sounded like Apple was implying that in the future, you'd probably have a central piece of Apple hardware acting as your home's HomeKit controller. I could see this product filling that gap. (Why require you've got your phone handy just to turn a light on or off in the house? Rely on the central unit that takes voice commands via Siri for that.) This would make a better "bridge" for accepting those "across the Internet" HomeKit requests than requiring an AppleTV for it, too.
Apple is somewhere in-between. Like Amazon, its devices try to boost its sales of media (music, movies, etc.) -- but Apple doesn't try to sell you "everything under the sun" from vacuum cleaners to car parts. It has a computer and consumer electronics focus.
IMO, the entire HomeKit thing hasn't been given nearly enough attention by Apple, but I see that slowly changing as 3rd. party products supporting it mature and gain traction. I'm still a little fuzzy on the details, but wasn't the original plan for HomeKit talking about requiring an AppleTV on the home network to act as the "bridge" that allowed HomeKit commands to be handled when issued from outside the local network? In any case, it definitely sounded like Apple was implying that in the future, you'd probably have a central piece of Apple hardware acting as your home's HomeKit controller. I could see this product filling that gap. (Why require you've got your phone handy just to turn a light on or off in the house? Rely on the central unit that takes voice commands via Siri for that.) This would make a better "bridge" for accepting those "across the Internet" HomeKit requests than requiring an AppleTV for it, too.
Interesting, we use our Fire Stick in a bedroom but, mostly use it for travel. Only time a problem with speed occurred was on a outdated or placement of the network router. On my network never misses a beat in a year and a half. Small size may mean the Fire Stick or any stick needs a strong signal to function properly.