Google Hasn't Cracked The Smart Display's Complexity Problem

In a meeting room this week at the Wynn–away from Google's temporarily rain-soaked outdoor booth at the Las Vegas Convention Center–the company demoed a tabletop touchscreen device that could display Google Photos albums, bring up directions from Google Maps (and send them to your phone), look up recipes, play music with album art, and of course load videos from YouTube. Google Assistant voice commands controlled most of the action, with the 8-inch touchscreen providing extra control and context. Google's software is a work in progress–devices using it won't ship until later this year–but it gave me the impression that the company is ready to take on touchscreen devices powered by Amazon's Alexa assistant, such as the Echo Show and Echo Spot. It also revealed an unsolved problem for both companies: How complex should navigation be on a device that's more like an appliance than a computer? As Amazon and Google are learning, the race toward simplification comes at a cost.