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Comment by driverdan | Hacker News Reader

After listening to friends rave about Now and reading so many positive comments online I really wanted to like it. I've been using it for a few months and my experience is significantly worse than what others have reported. It always seems to show me notifications for the wrong information at the wrong time.

Take directions. I work at a coworking space 4 miles from my home. The hours I'm there vary. Now seems to try predicting when I'm going to leave and shows me directions home. Its timing is never correct and I don't need directions for a route I drive all the time.

I can only remember one instance of it correctly notified me of when to leave (with directions) for something on my calendar. Often it just shows directions without the "Leave Now" message.

Sometimes it notifies me of the weather. Sometimes it doesn't. I haven't figured out that pattern yet.

Overall it just doesn't seem to understand my usage patterns.

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> I work at a coworking space 4 miles from my home. The hours I'm there vary.

Followed by:

> Overall it just doesn't seem to understand my usage patterns.

It sounds like that's because there isn't a pattern, at least in the case of your commute. You should just configure it to not try to show you those directions.

You can't. I work from home and Now has decided that I work at the vegetable shop nearest to my house (because I visit there often I guess), and it has assigned it the location name "Work". You cannot delete this location. You can rename it, but that won't stop Now from suggesting that you drive there. If there was a bit more control it would be fantastic.

In Now app, go to Settings | My Stuff | Places | Work. You can edit the address in there.

I think one of the philosophies behind Now is that you don't need to configure it. Through it having access to your calendar, email, and searches, it is supposed to be clever. It'll probably get better in future, but if users have to configure it, then it's currently failing.

"... I don't need directions for a route I drive all the time."

It's not just about directions, it's about traffic as well. When it maps a regular drive for me it also factors in traffic delays.

Yes, but today as I was leaving work it told me there was heavy traffic. There wasn't any way to reroute so I used google maps and this time it told me traffic was light and gave a different commute time. All happened within a minute so it seems unlikely that it was right in the middle of updating traffic conditions. I drove the usual way and the traffic was normal.

So I'm not sure what its up to.

Guessing random working hours are hard for any algorithm. I wouldn't really hold that against google. As well, the directions to common destinations is more about knowing what traffic will be like and if you should take an alternate route. This is much more useful for those that commute farther.

I quit my job and started freelancing from home last year, but there's no way to delete a work address in Google Now (only to change it).

You could maybe change it to be the same as your home address.

Having tried that myself, I discovered your suggestion causes Google Now to go a little cuckoo. It spent a week trying to suggest that I work at our local grocery store because I went there one morning for coffee, milk, and lunch ingredients.

Then when I met up with some associates at a coworking spot, it tried recommending that I drive home to the grocery store. :-?

It does this sort of thing to me all the time. When I'm at home, it thinks I should go "home" to my girlfriend's. When I'm there, it tells me to go to my actual home.

Brilliant.

I recommend a real, living, breathing assistant for you then. You can hire one cheap online from India.

...but then I'd have to send them my phone. ;-)

...and then I'd have to have the person in India with my phone turn on mock locations, and then be constantly borrowing someone else's phone. I'd probably have to get another personal assistant here in the U.S. to follow me around so I can borrow their phone and task them with updating where I am to the resource I hire in India.

My experience exactly.

I had plans in G+ to go to the Exploratorium at 2:00 on Saturday. I finished brunch early, so I arrived at 1:30. Google Now interrupted me at 1:45 to remind me to go to the Exploratorium.

Are you really complaining that it can't read your mind?

It sounds like he's complaining that it was telling him to go somewhere he already was.

But being in the same building doesn't mean he was already there. When I'm at work I still want a reminder for a meeting.

He wasn't going to the exploratorium for a meeting. I'm not sure what the solution is, or if there is one, but the point is that it was not useful.

It was in a calendar (this case G+). It's not going to know you don't want a reminder for something because it's not a human and it can't read your mind.

I'd rather have it remind me of things that I don't want to be reminded of than not be reminded of things I do.

The premise of google now is that it can read your mind. It's not my (the consumer) job to be concerned about implementation.

No, it's really not. The premise of G+ is that it predicts what you want to see. There's a massive difference between predicting and knowing.

It was a Google+ event with about 100 people invited. It felt like it was a cached notification that didn't realize I had already arrived.

Are you sure that wasn't just an ordinary calendar reminder?

Yes.

It doesn't work too well on the first day. Use it for a few days and it will begin to learn your habits.

Not if you continually use public transportation. I go all over the place in NYC, and there doesn't seem to be a way to get the directions to default to public transportation. Having driving directions and traffic wait time when I don't have a car is kind of useless.

Press the i button in the top right hand corner of the card. Select 'Transportation Mode' from the expander. Select from Driving, Public Transport, Walking, Cycling etc.

Excellent, thank you so much for this. "Next train leaving in <x> minutes" is sweet.

I always use public transportation in Boston and configured it to show directions as such the first day I had it last fall. It's probably more useful if you use it this way because there are usually multiple possible routes to take and it gives a very good indication of when to walk out the door.

He stated he used it for few months.

I've been using it even longer, and, aside of few "ok, cool" moments, it is completely unusable piece of software.

Deal breaker for me is - you can't rely on it as a weather app, you can't rely on it as reminder, as currency converter, and so on. Simply put, it's unreliable.

And a bit scary to boot, but I don't mind that, seeing how incompetent it is.

From their comment:

  I've been using it for a few months

Unless you work as Taxi driver, or Messenger.

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