Android, Windows Phone bosses downplay Apple's Siri threat - Page 6

Very well said... Especially where [Google] generalized web search is the avenue of last resort.

Siri will handle all the mundane things (and more) so we can concentrate our expertise and attention on those things requiring human Intelligence.

Erm, sorry Andy? From June 10, 2010:


http://www.smh.com.au/technology/tec...0609-xvj1.html

That little snippet right there shows that you missed the big deal.

You need far more than a "dollop" of natural language processing to get this right. And you don't make up for that with more robust state memory. Siri has much more than a "dollop", and if Google or Microsoft make the same mistake you are making in their assessment of the difference, then they will be barking up the wrong tree for a very long time.

Thompson

Well, since Google pretty much swiped the entire concept of a all-display multi-touch phone from Apple, I think it's more than a little disingenuous to get nit-picky about who did what when.

And Apple acquired their notifications manager - they identified a developer that did a good implementation and brought them on to make it native. Like copy and paste, improved notifications and many of the other things noted in that article are no-brainers. I think you see Google "getting there first" because Apple has been focused on getting the core foundational stuff right first, then polishing the extraneous features.

The result is a much more solid, polished and mature feel in iOS vs. Android.


I don't think anyone has said that (and if they did, it's just silly).

What Apple does do, and demonstrates time and time again, is that they are fanatically devoted to the details and the user experience, even if they have to leave things out in the short term. They are just about the only company who are not willing to be slaves to blind checklists of features just for the sake of having those features - and I think that is why they are wildly successful when most of their competitors are "flummoxed".

Yup, Android had voice to text for some functions - but it is no where near the level of Apple with Siri. Will Google now update their voice control? No doubt. Will it ever match or surpass Apple? Based on their past performance with other projects I'm not holding my breath.


I don't see that in conflict with this discussion. Indeed, Steve's comments re-enforce the irrelevance of many of the themes in this thread. Meaningless indicators like "marketshare" or the addition or missing of a feature here and there. What is important, and what you hear Steve and now others at Apple echo over and over and over is "Apple has to do a really good job." That's the secret sauce. The ultimate "if we build great products, they will come". And so far, they have been consistently and reliably been proven correct as - as the article points out, people are voting with their wallets big time!

Is this exclusive to Apple? It doesn't have to be. But also as I posted earlier, Apple is so good, so polished and so well integrated at this point they make the whole experience thing appear seamless and trivial.

It isn't.

It's why the rest of the industry is struggling. It's why I think HP decided to drop WebOS than try to gear up and take Apple on as an equal (which I still think they could have and am still pissed that they flushed that whole platform away).

Heck, even Amazon who is far closer to Apple with their vertical integration isn't competing the same way with Apple and the iPad - or even the iPhone or iPod.

There are concrete and real reasons for that. Explore those reasons more and you will understand that there is far more to this whole thing than a feature here or a missing feature there.

Job's critiques were usually accurate. These "critiques" are sour grapes. Quite a difference.


Put up or shut up? Not say anything at all? Show a little integrity?

Pretty sad when out and out BS has become socially acceptable "Your phone should be a personal assistant" - seriously? And you don't think that should be ridiculed for the absolutely inane comment it is?

No, the easier choice is to read into it whatever he want's to justify his criticism or paranoia

This is the Internet - logic and reason have no place here! Never mind Apple has NOTHING to gain by spying on it's customers, and everything to loose. They have all my data therefore they must be evil!

Ugh...

Sharing what with them, exactly?

Remember this is the company that is still being mercilessly flogged for the 30% subscription thing when the real fly in the ointment for publishers is Apple <gasp> doesn't automatically hand over their customers data and <double gasp> forces them to ask for it.

So, Apple, who is willing to take extreme flack over the whole publisher/30%/privacy thing is just going turn around and with Siri willy-nilly leak personal information about their users either internally or to partners?

Seriously? I can understand a little paranoia, but if Apple hasn't won your trust yet with their repeated practices and actions then I don't know what company on this planet you would feel comfortable trusting!

What does "do well" mean? As e-readers and glorified electronic catalogs, absolutely.

As a potential replacement for a general purpose computer like the iPad can be - not even close.

Haha = OK, fine - the "just wait and it will be way better than Apple". Where have we heard this before?

Great - we'll see. If it's so easy as you claim, then let's see when MS finally ships it how it compares.

In the meantime Apple is shipping and people are being [/i]productive[/i].

Today.

Not some hazy time in the future.

Have now or might be. Such a tough choice....

If Siri has "much more than a dollop", I'm not seeing it. Right now, all I'm seeing is a finite set of possible interactions, accessed using a very large vocabulary of commands and sentence structures. The "dollop" of natural language comes in comes in picking up various (but again, finite) keywords used to filter or add precision to the command vocabulary.

The "magic" of Siri isn't in its natural language processing, it's in its huge command vocabulary. That becomes very apparent when you ask a fairly precise question that it should be able to give a precise answer for, but it can't because it doesn't have the right command vocabulary for it.

They said the same stupid things about the iphone and the ipad.
"Never catch on.", "Not what people want.", "Already been tried."

I understand it's the competition's way of trying to slow down the Apple hype, but let's face facts,
It's just making these spin doctors look stupid...

I think the size of Siri's command vocabulary is NOT the limitation. It seems to me the current lack is in connection to the additional specialized databases from which Siri can draw data. That's when it fails over to a search of last resort on Google.

For example, the Siri app was connected to OpenTable and could make reservations at restaurants. This current better integrated version does not yet do this.

I say give it time. Not magic just really useful.

You mean, sort of like the Internet? Yeah, that's never going to be useful.

I have news for you: Microsoft is already shipping voice technology in Windows Phone that allows one to be quite productive. Maybe not as productive as Siri, but that's only because Microsoft's product doesn't have all the commands yet.

TellMe is also very interesting because, as far as we know, Apple hasn't moved into cars yet. Voice tech like TellMe and Siri is very good for people on the move. Even Google is exploring automobiles in interesting ways.

The fun is just beginning!

It really amazes me how intellectually dishonest some people can be.

If you're going to compare all Android devices to something, why not all iOS devices? Oh, I get it - because your little game doesn't apply any more.


Sorry, but the things a Ford car will do pales in comparison to Siri. You're simply making it clear that you don't have any idea what Siri does.

Uh...using my 4S....siri doesn't like complicated stuff. She likes it nice and slow, but not too big. The most useful feature for me is setting the alarm clock with my voice.

Winner winner chicken dinner.

Siri is a bigger threat to Google's advertising Empire than iAd will EVER be. The real reason why Google and Microshaft execs are panning Siri is because they knew once Apple acquired Siri that their search engines would be used less.

Lee even uses the nonsensical "Full Internet" people don't want full internet they want the correct answer to their queries without the BS results from SEO.

Siri is a breath of fresh air in a stinky ad/datamining search arena.

WWSD: Boom!

Soothsayer, soothsayer -- say me some sooths.

...jutht try thaying that if you thpeak with a lithp!

Microsoft's product is missing something alright - and "all the commands" isn't it

I'm glad SIRI will balk at sending my wife a text that says "I love her." Might make for a lot more awkward moments when I get home if she did send that...

whats so special about that. Its even easier to do on android. Just say: "navigate to Blah house in Dallas."

Siri will end up being a novelty for most.. used every once in a while for specific things, just like voice commands for android. If people really wanted a voice controlled digital personal assistant it would have happened on the desktop years ago.

There's a huge, fundamental difference that's a game changer.

On Andrid you have to tell the phone how do do what you want to do. On Siri, you just tell it what you need and it figures out how to do it. Try telling Android "I lost my keys". See if it figures out you need a locksmith.

Try saying "Do I need a raincoat?" and see if it not only pulls up the weather, but both shows the hour by hour forecast for today and tells you the summary of "Yes, it looks like rain".

It's such a huge, fundamental difference. Instead of thinking like a computer, you can talk like a person and have the phone figure out what it all means.