Hey Jerry,
I was wondering if you might speak here or on the podcast to the issue of people who have a Google Apps/Gsuite account. As a long-time developer, I got my own domain name back in the late 90's and it's been used primarily to have a permanent email address ever since. I switched to Gmail around 2005, maybe a bit earlier, and have been using mostly Google services ever since.
The problem is that with many new services Google seems to hold off on offering them to Google Apps/Gsuite users. If I could downgrade to a "normal" account without losing my domain-specific email address, I'd do it, but I don't think that's possible. So for those of us who are not necessarily Gsuite users for "business" reasons, we get to wait for a lot of things longer than the normal user, and I would argue that most of us are more early-adopter types than the "normal user."
The latest example of this is Google Home/Assistant. I can use it, but can't take advantage of any of the account-specific features. So I can't say "Ok Google, good morning" and have it spit out my calendar events for the day. I've had mine now for three months and still can't do this and I have no clue when I will. Pretty frustrating!
I'm wondering why these accounts are so different that items like this cannot be offered in some form as with normal accounts? I understand 98% of Google accounts are probably of the "normal" variety, but many of the power users are in that 2% that are being frustrated and feel like we are being disadvantaged by the fact that we are indeed actually paying Google for the privilege of having these special accounts.
I was wondering if you might speak here or on the podcast to the issue of people who have a Google Apps/Gsuite account. As a long-time developer, I got my own domain name back in the late 90's and it's been used primarily to have a permanent email address ever since. I switched to Gmail around 2005, maybe a bit earlier, and have been using mostly Google services ever since.
The problem is that with many new services Google seems to hold off on offering them to Google Apps/Gsuite users. If I could downgrade to a "normal" account without losing my domain-specific email address, I'd do it, but I don't think that's possible. So for those of us who are not necessarily Gsuite users for "business" reasons, we get to wait for a lot of things longer than the normal user, and I would argue that most of us are more early-adopter types than the "normal user."
The latest example of this is Google Home/Assistant. I can use it, but can't take advantage of any of the account-specific features. So I can't say "Ok Google, good morning" and have it spit out my calendar events for the day. I've had mine now for three months and still can't do this and I have no clue when I will. Pretty frustrating!
I'm wondering why these accounts are so different that items like this cannot be offered in some form as with normal accounts? I understand 98% of Google accounts are probably of the "normal" variety, but many of the power users are in that 2% that are being frustrated and feel like we are being disadvantaged by the fact that we are indeed actually paying Google for the privilege of having these special accounts.