Macsplosion

Notsofast said:

The way the article is written is confusing some readers obviously based on the comments thus far.  This is not an engineering position; it's a marketing position.  The person is supposed to work with social media to see what folks are saying and communicate that back to others so they have that input and so they can coordinate marketing messages.  

Also, the article skims over the entire comparative capability question and merely repeats an internet meme about Siri being behind.  In truth, the situation is much more positive. I am a heavy user of Siri, and have family members who have Alexa and Google in their homes.  ALL three have a long way to go, but in contrast to the author's comment,  recent tests have shown Siri to be ahead of Alexa and getting close to Google in terms of accuracy.  

As far as "skills" that is true in absolute numbers, but it is misleading. Yes, people have written thousands of "skills" for Alexa, but surveys show most people haven't used a single one of them.  In contrast,  surveys show that Siri does pretty much everything most people use their smart assistants for, as does Alexa and Google.   Yes, someone has written a skill for Alexa so she can fart on command, but it turns out people use things like smart speakers to:  play music and podcasts (#1 reason), check weather and traffic, check and send messages, make and listen to phone calls, set timers and alarms, and control their home automated devices. ( Believe me, Siri on the Homepod's audio quality and listening ability in noise, blows away the low quality Amazon and Google products)

Again, Siri is still in the infant stage, but so are the others, and it will be great to see what Apple does with their acquisitions like Vocal IQ, but  in the meantime,  Siri is the most used digital assistant in the world, and knows more languages by far, and what is glossed over by almost all writers is that you aren't sacrificing your privacy to use Siri. 

ericthehalfbee said:

More numbers that show Apple is going to announce that Q1 2018 (or as some call it Q4 2017 or holiday shopping season) was a monster quarter.