It frankly makes Google look extremely slow, especially with how hard it has been for them to make sense of that Nest acquisition, in early 2014.
Google Assistant for example is mostly superior to Alexa. Yes, Alexa technically has more connected device options. But not really that much any more. They are just really good at somehow capturing markets.
AWS is more extreme still. In many ways GCP is technically superior. I suppose a lot of it is first mover advantage on Amazons part. But some of it the perception people have of Google not supporting stuff. Which might be true for beta software and consumer products. But is not at all worse than other clouds for commercial (paid) offerings.
Off topic: Amazon also seems to dodge the brunt of the press onslaught tech firms have been receiving for the last two or three years (mostly deserved, yes). But Amazon is arguable worse in regards to monopolistic behavior and probably equal with regards to privacy.
I get the feeling Google is held to a higher standard because of perceived political stance. While they often publicly take a stance for one issue or another while Amazon simply ignores everything acts more like a a business of old: completely devoid of any politics.
A similar thing is seen in investor relations. Amazon generally seems to get more leeway in regards to capital expenditure. They invest like crazy in all sorts of ventures. As does Alphabet. But analysts only seem to reprimand Alphabet for that. It seems obvious that with Amazons entrance into advertising, and if Google doesn't somehow catch up in the cloud space or looses it's arguable lead in AI then Amazon (and Microsoft I guess) will eventually take over all of IT within the next 10 or 20 years.
My possible personal biases: I like what Alphabet is doing with it's other bets. The crazy stuff. Stuff that doesn't make immediate business sense. Also, and this is unpopular, I like that their taking a political stance in some cases. I like to believe that the founders are actually in it for more than money.
Apple should have bought eero.
I've been waiting for Apple to make a big acquisition for years. Beats!!! Really?
I see the parent I replied to mentioned smart home, which I must have missed.
I really believe the story that the HomePod was never meant to be smart home equipment, that that role was saddled on it before release.
"Hey Siri, play some music." (and it's _my_ iCloud library)
"Hey Siri, never play that song again."
"Hey Siri, skip."
I think it sounds great, and I also like that either of us can seamlessly set our iPhones to output from them. I'd like a second one in the living room to expand the sound in that area, and two more for two different "zones" where it would be useful. Siri gives us a laugh every now and then, too.
HomePod has exceptional audio positioning and audiophiles have benchmarked it against high end speakers like Klipsch and it's held up very well.
And the benefit for me is Siri. I ask her everyday to read out the BBC News, set timers in the kitchen, set reminders and most importantly play the huge array of content from Apple Music.
And the Beats deal was an incredibly good purchase. It gave them audio engineering skills which you have seen popup in AirPods, MacBooks, HomePod etc. It gave them the Beats streaming platform which now forms the basis for Apple Music. It gave them a youthful, iconic brand which helps with initiatives like Beats1. And their hardware business was extremely profitable. Not to mention having execs like Iovine and Dre involved.
I personally found the interface a step up from Asus/Netgear/etc.
The best mesh network though would be through a smoke alarm setup. Then you could do backhaul over the power line and then you'd have WiFi everywhere. It would work really well for newer construction where hard wired smoke alarms are mandatory.
Argh, please don't proliferate ethernet over power lines. They cause horrible RFI by turning every unshielded power line into a broadband antenna[1].
[1] https://www.rtl-sdr.com/showing-the-hf-interference-problem-...
I'd buy them again in a heartbeat, and I'm normally quite hesitant to buy Google products.
Unifi’s software is much better than any other enterprise solution, but it still has a lot of rough edges and bugs if you’re doing anything non-standard.
It's supposed to be plug-and-play.
I'd probably buy one, but I'm pretty happy with my 2 year old Unifi AC router, after initial setup, I haven't done anything to it - I have it set to update firmware automatically.
Really wanted to like Google Wifi but it was just too flaky too quickly to put up with.
(it's also the first match on Bing and DuckDuckGo)