"Pulling stuff from your gmail is a cute trick" ...
It has proven to be an incredibly powerful feature at least for me. I could repeat the list of things others have listed (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8435239 ) but why be redundant.
"Especially when you're not otherwise bought into the Google ecosystem"
Well yeah. I have to admit that at work I'm a heavy user of google calendar and email and in personal life maps, navigation, email, calendar and google search. Honestly, that's what I see most iPhone users around me use too. The point here is that if google cloud services are already in your life (as they are in 100's of millions of people's lives), Google Now on Android puts a nice face to it and brings them together in a very user-friendly and intuitive way.
"I'm in the mode of dictating things manually. And Siri shines at that"
Perhaps you didn't read the original posting that we're discussing here. It shows how far Siri has to go to catch up with Google's Now's voice search.
I don't see the utility, honestly. The stuff I need to remember is in my company's Exchange server, not in my gmail. All I get in Google Now is reminders of people's birthdays who I don't care about.
It has proven to be an incredibly powerful feature at least for me. I could repeat the list of things others have listed (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8435239 ) but why be redundant.
"Especially when you're not otherwise bought into the Google ecosystem"
Well yeah. I have to admit that at work I'm a heavy user of google calendar and email and in personal life maps, navigation, email, calendar and google search. Honestly, that's what I see most iPhone users around me use too. The point here is that if google cloud services are already in your life (as they are in 100's of millions of people's lives), Google Now on Android puts a nice face to it and brings them together in a very user-friendly and intuitive way.
"I'm in the mode of dictating things manually. And Siri shines at that"
Perhaps you didn't read the original posting that we're discussing here. It shows how far Siri has to go to catch up with Google's Now's voice search.