I just want my Google Now back. It was so smart by comparison to Assistant or all the other modern "AI" crap. It didn't try to write me a funny text, instead it contextually pulled actually useful information up so that when I get the idea to look at my phone for something, hey!, it's already there!
The craziest thing was my trip to the UK back in the days. In order, it did the following:
- The evening before it asked me whether I want to be woken up a bit earlier (20 minutes) as the weather was expected to be very bad.
- It reminded me to pack an umbrella in the morning.
- When it had decided that my movement mode was driving (I had taken a taxi), it popped up that I needed to go to Terminal 2 at the airport (they have separate areas for dropping off passengers).
- Once at the terminal, my ticket + it's QR code was persistent on the screen.
- It also had a persistent notification with the boarding gate + the current expected time (there was a slightly delay, hence I noticed).
- When I arrived at Heathrow, it offered on-foot navigation to the coach area.
- When I got closer, the coach ticket + it's QR was persistent on the screen.
- Once in the coach it offered me information that the weather at my destination was expected to be sunny. And when I would probably arrive, of course.
For-fucking-hell Google, that's exactly how I need a phone to assist me during a trip! I don't need some shitty voice interaction or long flowing texts made up of filler words and wrong facts. I need contextual information that fits the fucking context! Google Now was insanely smart. It also did lots of little things, like when I got somewhere with a car, parked it, then walked off a bit, if I then sat down for a long time when the phone was moved again (say... when you get up out of the Restaurant!) the parked position would pop up. Smarts. Not useful very often, but smarts.