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Comment by nullc | Hacker News Reader

A little offtopic, but am I the only person that is driven absolutely batty by stuff like google maps talking over conversations out of nowhere and without warning (usually telling me about something of no value)?

I really wish these text-to-speech interfaces would begin notivation with a unobtrusive ding, wait a moment so you can stop talking... or even better, listen and slightly delay their notice so they're not talking over you if at all possible.

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You're not alone, it drives me insane. With driving directions, why does it need to tell me to make a right off my street onto the main road when I've done it a thousand times? No matter where you're going from my house, the first three directions are always the same unless you've got a helicopter.

That's not to mention the overly verbose, repetitive, and late instructions whenever you're taking some ramp from one highway to another. God forbid you try to have a conversation during that.

Try hearing it as a computer, not a person.

I say "try" because I've failed at this myself a couple of times. But it may help.

It's about the speaking itself. I have a hard time with auditory discrimination so I have difficulty speaking if others are as well because I can't properly listen to myself speak.

I wish there was a level of detail slider for the navigation system, because by default I think it's overly detailed and verbose in many instances. An option to skip the first n instructions or any instructions within an x mile radius of my home would be nice too. I don't need the navigation to tell me how to get to the major highways near my home, just which one to go to.

Yes, especially when listening to a podcast in the car.

"And so now begins the most interesting twi--"

"Get ready to make a left turn up ahead"

"--and it was all because--"

"Left turn in 100 meters"

"--but what really--"

"Turn left"

"--and that would change things forever."

Not so with CarPlay. I’ve noticed that while using the Podcasts app and Apple Maps with CarPlay, it pauses the podcast while the maps app is speaking and then resumes it.

I think it depends on the specific app. Does what you’re saying in Pocketcasts, but the Economist app does what parent is saying.

On iOS some combination of the navigation app and the app playing audio can decide whether to interrupt the audio or to talk over it.

The Overcast podcast player tries to backup to complete a word or phrase when it is interrupted.

>or even better, listen and slightly delay their notice so they're not talking over you if at all possible.

with ios adding an indicator to let the user know whether an app is listening in or not, I'm sure this is going to cause a lot of pushback from users in the form of "omg google is eavesdropping on everything we say!!!".

> I really wish these text-to-speech interfaces would begin notivation with a unobtrusive ding,

At least the Amazon and Google produced devices have notification sounds in accessibility options. One sound when it wakes up, and another when it stops listening. Sometimes you can hear it figured out it miswoke and cancels itself (like when the La Cucaracha car horn in Ant-Man triggered a Google Home? I dunno sometimes it wakes on the weirdest stuff)

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