Starting to get the hang of Alexa’s Follow-Up mode, I’m still waiting for brief mode to reveal itself in my Alexa app (being in Canada but using a US Amazon account, I’m thinking maybe there’s a conflict in when my app gets the push update). One thing I wish for with the Google Home is a brief mode specifically for music.

A few annoying things with Google Home:

• It mentions the song title and “from Spotify” with every song request. Unless it’s uncertain about the response, maybe it could just play the song instead of the announcement.
• It plays a playlist from Spotify and not just a single song. “OK Google, play ‘what is love’” — I get the song plus some playlist. Unless a playlist is requested, the Home should just play a song.

Alexa isn’t guiltless in this area. Instead of saying that a song isn’t available or only a sample is available via Amazon Music, it should check if the user has access to the song via Spotify.