Android, Windows Phone bosses downplay Apple's Siri threat - Page 2

This sounds a little like Whistling past the graveyard...

...and a little provincial to limit it to their respective smart phone OSes.


Siri will go way beyond just phone devices.


It is worth remembering this:


I suspect that both Ballmer and Page are concerned that Amazon Silk and Siri could deeply reduce the advertising appeal of web searches (Bing and Google). These new approaches could aggregate and cache results on their own servers -- reducing hits to (limiting ads and hiding user information from) Bing, Google, Yahoo...

Here is a link to an interesting AVIOS article on Siri

http://www.avios.org/news_apple_make...erstanding.htm

When the mouse was introduced as a new man machine interface device, some high level executives also said it was a passing fad ...

I remember reading that it, along with Apple computers, were called just toys. Funny how many still call Apple products toys and for fun only.

I tried, but I don't have contact info for your wife...


Actually, it works quite well...

Try: "Text my wife [short pause] I love you"

Siri: "here's your message to Lucy,

'To: Lucy:

I love you'

Want to send it?"

I guess we'll start seeing Android phones with one or two line alphanumeric displays, after all, what more does one need to display a phone number. \ (Those displays will be wider than Apple's display though!)

Yes, I'm using Siri to respond to this message.

It is amazing that little minds are so incapable of thinking outside the box.

Hey, there was a character named "Andy Andy" on that old sitcom Cheers:

It took real courage to include a voice recognition/interpretation capability as a key feature of a new OS! Microsoft and Google don't have that courage, Steve Jobs and Apple did. Apple might have bought the core technologies but these had to fit within a longer term vision, not just become some cute add-on. Steve talked about the vision over many years, going back at least one and one-half decades.


I would not be embarrassed to talk with a real-life PA in public, perhaps one day Siri will pass the Turing test and then we all can do so without sweating on the outcome.

fud.


fud.

Niether of your two examples show that SJ was being disingenuous, Flash is sub par technology and deserves to die and so far there are no 7 inch iPads from Apple.

The difference with these two guys is that it's very obvious - given their history of aping Apple's every move - that this is simply spin and will come back to bite them when they eventually include something similar in their OSs and if history is any guide, they will probably claim that they were planning this all along.

Denial is the first phase after decline sets in and competition falls of the cliff....
This is typical example of Apple showing the future. We (consumers and competition) don't get it. After some time this will become mainstream....and Apple is ahead of the pack.
Let Balmy be CEO of Microsoft as long as it takes.....

You nailed it... they'll wait to see user loving the experience and use cases that make sense and then come out with their clunky copies and claim it as innovation.

Anyone involved with Marko-spin in general is a tool... even Apple spinsters

Even if that were true, it would just be an extension of what Google has been doing with Gingerbread since late 2010.

Using voice to interact with your phone is not a new concept to android.

According to Rubin it shouldn't be

These things have been with us for years so let's commend Apple for teaching us how to sing.
Apple changes mindsets which is often a good thing.

With Siri there is also a fair case to argue that Apple wants to delay ever having a phone that is closer to midway between a Pad and a Pod.

I have been visiting this forum since 2008 but never cared to register. There were many moments when I really wanted to thank somebody, rebuke somebody for his bullshit, put-in my 2-cents or simply pay homage to Steve(recently) but I didn't.

But today, this comment made me throw up and i had to register just to tell this one man..... "In future PLS refrain from typing your mind out; I am telling you from the core of my heart that your any future comment will also be as stupid as this one is. Trust me!"

Huh!! I feel so much better now..

Yeah, the 7" iPad rumor looks like it will have the staying power of the iPhone nano rumo, and how long has that'e release been imminent? Belief in these things flies in the face of all reason, but people seem to get stuck on the idea and start to act like it's been announced.

... and Asherian.

"Your phone is a tool for communicating. You shouldnt be communicating with the phone; you should be communicating with somebody on the other side of the phone, he added."

Really, so why put a web browser, GPS, apps and other functionality on a phone. This guy really is a moron.

LOL - seriously. What Jobs said was true, not just some pathetic dig at another company.

7" tablets failed.
Mobile flash fails.

Siri is an interesting concept, with additional time and money (of which Apple has both) it may one day become truly useful.

For now, however it's not much use, especially outside of the US.

In the UK Siri will not look up any map or business information, simple questions seem to throw it off. A mind numbing example hit me yesterday.

I was walking home, it was raining so I was holding my umbrella, I'd forgotten my watch at home and so asked Siri for the time. I said, "what is the time" Siri responded "I do not know what the time is on Newport Road". All the stupid thing had to do was look at the clock on my phone and read it to me. It will give me the time in bangkok or any city/country in the world but will not simply give you the time as displayed on your iPhone. In the end I asked it for the time in London as that's the time for the UK as a whole. Honestly now how ridiculous is that?

I've found many areas where Siri is unable to do the simplest thing, contacts that have only a forename for example really seem to non-plus Siri.

I look forward to the improvements that Apple will make with Siri, but for now it can't even perform half of the tasks that it's supposed to be able to do, especially outside of the US. Very dissapointing.

The thing that I find funny regarding some of the comments about not communicating with your phone is this... if I'm out and about in a public place, I'd likely be using my earbuds. You speak with Siri using common everyday language, so how does anyone around me know whether I'm talking to my digital personal assistant or a human assistant back at the office?

Personally, I have no issue with using a digital personal assistant, in public or in private. I think Siri is very useful right out of the gate and will only get more so.

Perhaps they don't see the value of Siri. Perhaps they criticize it simply because they cannot compete with it (yet) or because they are trying to move attention away from Apple and on to their devices.

We see this time and time again. Apple releases a product. Their competition publicly criticize it and in some cases openly mock it, only to then turn around and copy it in the coming months. Steve Ballmer's comments on the iPod, iPhone and iPad come to mind. He publicly slams everything that Apple does. I think that Ballmer does this not because he thinks that Apple's products are bad, he does it because he thinks that they're good.

I think that they really know that Siri is pretty amazing, especially for a beta, but really, Apple is their competition. You cannot expect them to publicly say how great it is and that they wish that they had it as well. They're never going to say that.

Android has had voice command capabilities like forever. iOS's version, good as it is, is just playing catch-up.

Unless Siri works near flawlessly, the novelty will wear off and only a few will use it.

Android has had voice command capabilities like forever. iOS's version, good as it is, is just playing catch-up.

What were the odds they would say 'Wow, this is a good implementation'?

That is exactly as I would expect for the vast majority.

However, there may be a few people who continue to use it after the novelty wears off. I used to use the voice dial on my old Motorola phone because it worked well. When I got an iPhone, I gave up because Voice Command worked like shit.

Thank god such people are tired of Siri! Now that you are done burying all of your bodies and declaring your undying love and asking the meaning of life, maybe the rest of us who actually use it can have a better experience.

Apple is not the right brand for Geeks. Apple is way done with the Geek market.

Just more proof how out of touch these guys are with reality and why the are better at copying than innovating. Having used Siri, I believe it's one of the most useful and powerful tools that's ever been available in a mobile device.

Let's see how long it takes Google and Microsoft to copy it.

I think it would have been more of a threat if Apple had waited until they got it out of beta. I've mainly head reviews and comments of it just not understanding people and the fact half the features don't work outside the US is a bit of a let down. Once people have used it and found it not to be 100% working yet, they just give up and will probably never try again.

It was a nice idea, ultimately best for sending messages while driving but I would agree it's not much of a threat. It will never become the standard way of using your phone, the same as people don't control there PC's via voice despite it also being perfectly possible. I also think the same for the next Xbox update, people will be able to control the whole Xbox dashbord via voice, but they will still use the controller.

Anyone who doesn't consider Siri a game changer just has no clue. I have had severe finger pain from typing for over 15 years. Yesterday I composed a tax letter using Siri and e-mailed it to my desktop. I then copy and pasted that email into a word document and finished up my tax letter. Additionally I composed this blog post using Siri. I don't think I would've ever posted before the iPhone 4S.

That's funny. It's already the standard way I use my phone. Over 50% of my phone interaction is Siri. Additionally, it surfaces functionality that I would have never used without Siri. I don't believe I am alone in this.

Based on the past performance of features these clowns panned, this means Siri is going to be the differentiator between the iPhone and the competitors going forward



Good grief, is he positioning himself for a position at Gartner in the future?!? Your phone shouldn't be an assistant? I've got news for him - my iPhone is already useful enough to be an assistant. Perhaps if his phone had a mature app platform and a decent web browser he would understand the concept and it wouldn't seem so foreign to him!


Huh? Talk about a false dichotomy - why is it always either/or with these clowns?


"Well, it's not a bad idea - it's just our implementation sucks so we don't want to really talk about it"


Another clueless competitor that is unfamiliar with that about which he is panning. Pathetic.


And an iPhone 4S user can't avoid speaking command their phones in public if they want to?

So iPhone 4S users have a choice of when to use it, but Microsoft is going to prevent it by not offering it at all?

Brilliant! It's not a gaping hole in our product line, but a feature!


Bingo. Here's the money point - literally. Sigh.... flummoxed may have been way too kind....

Yeah, the notification system. Big deal.
Google stole the whole freakin Operating System from Apple. LOL

Many have downplayed Siri as something weird... Why would you be ashamed to put the phone to your face and speak to it? Isn't that what talking to someone looks like? lol

Isn't one of the real breakthroughs with SIRI on the iPhone 4S the integration of SIRI speech recognition software with artificial intelligence software like WolframAlpha.

If that is what is happening here, then we can look forward to some very, very impressive phones in the future - not just 'smartphones', but 'bloody genius phones'.

Android, Windows phone bosses? LOL...what are they mobsters or something?

Actually the speech-to-text is licensed from Nuance, the makers of Dragon. Siri provides the AI - the contextual capabilities and natural language responses.

Remember when Apple bought Siri and the clueless analysts thought Apple was gearing up to compete with Google in search? Watch the All Things D interview with Steve Jobs from 2010 - he makes it clear Apple bought Siri for their AI. We now know exactly what he meant.


Indeed! It will only get better as Apple pours more resources into it and the team gets to analyze the way people try to use it and Siri responds. I can't wait to see this mature over time!

Nor is it to apple. Heck, even one of then old shuffles had voice control. And if they android do go on to develop this as a feature, they are clearly indicating that they don't believe a word of the criticism they're currently levelling at apple. Why develop a technology if it's pointless?!