What are some of the most difficult things to do on a large screen smartphone? Type long complicated messages. Even harder, if you have to switch between fields like in a calendar to make an appointment. How about sorting through pages of inaccurate Google search hits?
If you use Siri, you will find the following become immensely easier:
Manipulating you calendar
Setting Reminders
Setting Alarms
Getting directions
Accurate search of databases (thanks Wolfram)
Finding local places of interest.
All of this done without extensive training on the user's part. Siri has made use of these features oh so useful and easy now. But, people are not used to it. But you know what happened at Apple? They tested the idea for month and months, in order to solve a severe cuatomer hassle, then when trying the old way of doing things, the end user benefit was clear. Rubin, Lee, Balmer, pick your favorite, are not designing user experiences. They are copying and adding some small feature differences.
Critical to all this is both recognition accuracy and understanding context. If you have not gone down this path, then you are going to be of the opinion it is a minor feature. Why, because rembering syntax (like programming) takes a lot of effort.
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.
And make no mistake, Dragon Naturally Speaking is a far more advanced speech-to-text technology than what's in Siri (it does, of course, lack the "AI").
snip .
Apple worked with Nuance on Siri so Siri probably uses the same tech as Dragon.
Like most things Apple, the previous implementations made sense only to techies and geeks who were comfortable with their limitations. The Apple version is accessible and comfortable to all.
Siri is indeed cool, probably the best voice recognition system available for consumers today. But it's not like everyone else has been sitting still, nor that Apple is the only company that can ever do anything right.
"We want to move forward and see Apple healthy and prospering again, we have to let go of a few things here. We have to let go of this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose. We have to embrace a notion that for Apple to win, Apple has to do a really good job. And if others are going to help us that's great, because we need all the help we can get, and if we screw up and we don't do a good job, it's not somebody else's fault, it's our fault. So I think that is a very important perspective."
There is an interesting point I hadn't thought of until your post. Clippit/Clippy had a visual character, Hal 9000 had a giant red eye as its visual counterpart, and many other AI in sci-fi have had at least a semblance of human visual characteristics, but Siri has nothing but a microphone symbol. This strikes me as unusual for SW being marketed as AI and a personal assistance. It certainly has personality but I'd think that it would be natural to want to add a visage to make it feel more human like.
You're inconspicuously touching on Google's fundamental perspective on we ...mere mortals. Human beings linger on as perpetual beta releases of the ultimate Google coded paradigm. Had Siri been Google's entry into AI, a visage would appropriately infer a beta release, and a microphone ...the final and ultimate version of Google intelligent assistant.
As fate would have it, Apple has indeed gotten symbolism to harmonize with its procreating vision. Siri, as any gynecologist would suggest, is going to get a visage, whose ever, out of beta.
I see a lot of folks trying to say Siri isn't ready or Siri isn't much use. I think you're wrong. This really happened in my garage just moments after getting her phone setup:
Wife (a professional musician running late to a gig--as always): Asks me, "Where is Blah House in Dallas?"
Me: "Just ask your phone"
Wife to Siri: "Where is Blah House in Dallas?"
Siri shows map with push pin.
Wife touches push pin
Phone displays address of Blah House in Dallas
Wife punches address into GPS and screeches out of the driveway.
Folks, give it up. My musician wife is in love with the thing.
To be fair, a lot of the complaints are that much of the functionality of Siri is for US Customers only. This lack of support for markets such as the UK that were highlighted on the keynote along with Siri is highly disappointing and does a lot to dilute the appeal.
I'm sure things will improve as time moves on, but essentially it's a half baked product that is only really any use in the US at this moment in time, once it's out of beta I'm sure the enthusiasm for it will pick up.
Apple does great work, but the belief that all other companies in the world are "stupid", "lazy" or "evil" is just silly.
I'm not convinced that anybody here thinks that all other companies are stupid, lazy or evil.
Instead, the Stupid companies are all of the companies in any industry which does not accept Apple's "deals". Like all the publishers and all of the movie companies.
The Lazy companies are the ones who have realized that the Mac platform is less profitable for development compared to Windows, like Adobe.
And the Evil companies are the ones who compete with Apple and win, like Google.
I agree with most of it I suppose. Apple's purchase of Siri was a great decision. Especially the deep integration it has. I however would not use this in public, and would probably laugh / shake my head at anyone who does when I finally see it happen.
I would however use it to send a text to someone while driving.
A lot of these features have been available on Android for quite a while. As in, with a single button press, I can tell my phone to call anyone, to send a text message, or to start voice navigation.
Everything else that Siri has is usually just a glorified Google search.
I don't think you really saw what Siri is capable of doing androids voice actions is a gloried google search with the option to send a text message. Siri can do anything from work out a tip at dinner to look up some ones phone number and addres from your contacts in a second. And as for using it in public there is a mode where u can put it to your head like your making a call to interact with it. So it looks normal yet you get the speed benefit of siri without all the clicking
The even funnier part is that so many of the people who call Apple computers 'toys' are using their PC mainly to play games.
Does Google really pay you enough to make it worthwhile for you to constantly make yourself look so foolish?
You have no basis whatsoever for the statement that "many of the people who call Apple computers 'toys' are using their PC mainly to play games".
Google pays me over $100,000.00 per year to spend a few minutes per day at AI Forums. You caught me! And I get a bonus every time you respond to one of my posts.
See, the issue is your wife isn't a techie/geek and therefore she's irrelevant.
Sigh. I am starting to feel sorry for the anti-Apple techie/geeks. It's going to be such a tough, tough road for them in the coming decade as Apple continues to take over and democratize technology.
Maybe Stallmans head will explode as the irony of the company he loathes the most for perpetuating "closed" actually makes more technology accessible to more people than he could ever dream of!
If there ever was a more stark contrast between theoretical piety and practical reality I don't know what it could be.
Eat your hear out, haters - it's going to be a long, bitter winter of your discontent!
That is unless you stop loathing "clueless newbies" and actually start designing technology that is accessible to anyone without them having to worship at the alter of technology for the sake of the technology.
And by the way, that's the ultimate discipline. Apple is so good at it, they just make it look trivially easy. Don't think so? Show them up! Go on! If it's no big deal, you should be able to do it without copying their look and feel or patents - right?
/crickets
Yup - same old story.... Except Apple has the $$$ and in mobile devices the price advantage.
2014 won't be like 1984, 1994 or 2004 - that's for sure!
An epic summary of the tech world at a crossroads.
I don't think you really saw what Siri is capable of doing androids voice actions is a gloried google search with the option to send a text message. Siri can do anything from work out a tip at dinner to look up some ones phone number and addres from your contacts in a second. And as for using it in public there is a mode where u can put it to your head like your making a call to interact with it. So it looks normal yet you get the speed benefit of siri without all the clicking
I think a lot of people don't get it. And that's fine, not everyone can be an objective and perceptive, especially about technology. Most seem to jump from it's possible/it's not gonna happen to wanting something they saw/read in some sci-fi book.
I think a lot of people really didn't get the iPad when it came out. I certainly felt it wasn't going to be huge but I couldn't conceive a place for it in my digital lifestyle. The iPhone is the same thing. People complained that it didn't have a physical keyboard yet the fastest sinking smartphone makers is the only one who still pushes that design despite trying and failing many times to join the modern smartphone world with full touchscreen I/O.
The part that gets me is the odd option of not looking at the entire service offered by a new tech, but pulling one, often mundane and simple, task it can accomplish and saying that some other tech had that so it's just playing catch up and it's not anything new or exciting.
Siri is huge! Windows, Google, and even Amazon are working quickly to get their own services in place. This will make our digital lifestyle better in the long run and we'll look back in a few years and wonder how we ever lived without it.
This is electricity in the home. This is the light bulb This is the automobile This is the telephone This is the airplane. This is the George Forman grill. Simple at its onset it will grow fast and in ways we can't predict over a very short span of our lives.
?Your phone is a tool for communicating. You shouldn?t be communicating with the phone; you should be communicating with somebody on the other side of the phone,? he added.
What a retarded comment.
Isn't this EXACTLY what a smart phone is all about? It's a PDA (Personal Digital ASSISTANT) and a phone. We don't all have human assistants on the other side of the phone, Rubin. Having the ability to interact with the device via voice is a killer app.
There's no doubt in my mind that Siri is a game changer. I already used voice dialing extensively in iPhone 4, and Siri extensively builds on that whole experience. It's so much faster and more convenient and flat out cooler than digging into Calendar to make an appointment. I can send three or four text messages as I walk between offices without fumbling with a keyboard. Just. Plain. Cool.
And think about it: Siri is a prime candidate to integrate into OS X as well. I already use Siri to manage meetings via voice while I continue to type on my MBP, so why not offer voice control there as well?
I think Rubin and Lees are just trashing Apple, because it purchased for $200 million what they would have paid $4 billion for. ;-)
And as proof of their hypocrisy, watch them come out with Siri-like functionality in their next releases.
What were they gonna say? "We're way behind in the ballgame..."? Yeah, right! No matter what technology that comes out on the iPhone or iPad that gets a lot of media attention, Google and Microsoft are gonna downplay it. Yeah, Siri is something that would come in handy while driving a car, and most will only use it sparingly after the initial fun they have. However, it is useful technology that's a step ahead of previous tech of the same nature. I had the old Siri app on my iPhone, and I occassionally used it. I'm sure when I upgrade to the iPhone 5, and get Siri on that phone, I'll use it just as much.
I see a lot of folks trying to say Siri isn't ready or Siri isn't much use. I think you're wrong. This really happened in my garage just moments after getting her phone setup:
Wife (a professional musician running late to a gig--as always): Asks me, "Where is Blah House in Dallas?"
Me: "Just ask your phone"
Wife to Siri: "Where is Blah House in Dallas?"
Siri shows map with push pin.
Wife touches push pin
Phone displays address of Blah House in Dallas
Wife punches address into GPS and screeches out of the driveway.
Folks, give it up. My musician wife is in love with the thing.
I agree with most of it I suppose. Apple's purchase of Siri was a great decision. Especially the deep integration it has. I however would not use this in public, and would probably laugh / shake my head at anyone who does when I finally see it happen.
I would however use it to send a text to someone while driving.
A lot of these features have been available on Android for quite a while. As in, with a single button press, I can tell my phone to call anyone, to send a text message, or to start voice navigation.
Everything else that Siri has is usually just a glorified Google search.
Yes this is true. It's particularly great with Google Navigation. Now, prepared to be crucified here.
The fact that they are commenting on it at all, especially dismissively, indicates to me that they see it as a threat. And if it wasn't effective, they wouldn't see it as a threat.
Comments
What are some of the most difficult things to do on a large screen smartphone? Type long complicated messages. Even harder, if you have to switch between fields like in a calendar to make an appointment. How about sorting through pages of inaccurate Google search hits?
If you use Siri, you will find the following become immensely easier:
Manipulating you calendar
Setting Reminders
Setting Alarms
Getting directions
Accurate search of databases (thanks Wolfram)
Finding local places of interest.
All of this done without extensive training on the user's part. Siri has made use of these features oh so useful and easy now. But, people are not used to it. But you know what happened at Apple? They tested the idea for month and months, in order to solve a severe cuatomer hassle, then when trying the old way of doing things, the end user benefit was clear. Rubin, Lee, Balmer, pick your favorite, are not designing user experiences. They are copying and adding some small feature differences.
Critical to all this is both recognition accuracy and understanding context. If you have not gone down this path, then you are going to be of the opinion it is a minor feature. Why, because rembering syntax (like programming) takes a lot of effort.
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.
Welcome.
Nice first post.
From my Siri to yours.
snip
And make no mistake, Dragon Naturally Speaking is a far more advanced speech-to-text technology than what's in Siri (it does, of course, lack the "AI").
snip .
Apple worked with Nuance on Siri so Siri probably uses the same tech as Dragon.
Like most things Apple, the previous implementations made sense only to techies and geeks who were comfortable with their limitations. The Apple version is accessible and comfortable to all.
Like notifications?
Siri is indeed cool, probably the best voice recognition system available for consumers today. But it's not like everyone else has been sitting still, nor that Apple is the only company that can ever do anything right.
"We want to move forward and see Apple healthy and prospering again, we have to let go of a few things here. We have to let go of this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose. We have to embrace a notion that for Apple to win, Apple has to do a really good job. And if others are going to help us that's great, because we need all the help we can get, and if we screw up and we don't do a good job, it's not somebody else's fault, it's our fault. So I think that is a very important perspective."
- Steve Jobs
There is an interesting point I hadn't thought of until your post. Clippit/Clippy had a visual character, Hal 9000 had a giant red eye as its visual counterpart, and many other AI in sci-fi have had at least a semblance of human visual characteristics, but Siri has nothing but a microphone symbol. This strikes me as unusual for SW being marketed as AI and a personal assistance. It certainly has personality but I'd think that it would be natural to want to add a visage to make it feel more human like.
You're inconspicuously touching on Google's fundamental perspective on we ...mere mortals. Human beings linger on as perpetual beta releases of the ultimate Google coded paradigm. Had Siri been Google's entry into AI, a visage would appropriately infer a beta release, and a microphone ...the final and ultimate version of Google intelligent assistant.
As fate would have it, Apple has indeed gotten symbolism to harmonize with its procreating vision. Siri, as any gynecologist would suggest, is going to get a visage, whose ever, out of beta.
A Magazine Is an iPad That Does Not Work
I suspect that before long we'll see a similar video with a child used to using Siri:
A no-Siri phone is a phone that doesn't work!
I see a lot of folks trying to say Siri isn't ready or Siri isn't much use. I think you're wrong. This really happened in my garage just moments after getting her phone setup:
Wife (a professional musician running late to a gig--as always): Asks me, "Where is Blah House in Dallas?"
Me: "Just ask your phone"
Wife to Siri: "Where is Blah House in Dallas?"
Siri shows map with push pin.
Wife touches push pin
Phone displays address of Blah House in Dallas
Wife punches address into GPS and screeches out of the driveway.
Folks, give it up. My musician wife is in love with the thing.
To be fair, a lot of the complaints are that much of the functionality of Siri is for US Customers only. This lack of support for markets such as the UK that were highlighted on the keynote along with Siri is highly disappointing and does a lot to dilute the appeal.
I'm sure things will improve as time moves on, but essentially it's a half baked product that is only really any use in the US at this moment in time, once it's out of beta I'm sure the enthusiasm for it will pick up.
Apple does great work, but the belief that all other companies in the world are "stupid", "lazy" or "evil" is just silly.
I'm not convinced that anybody here thinks that all other companies are stupid, lazy or evil.
Instead, the Stupid companies are all of the companies in any industry which does not accept Apple's "deals". Like all the publishers and all of the movie companies.
The Lazy companies are the ones who have realized that the Mac platform is less profitable for development compared to Windows, like Adobe.
And the Evil companies are the ones who compete with Apple and win, like Google.
I agree with most of it I suppose. Apple's purchase of Siri was a great decision. Especially the deep integration it has. I however would not use this in public, and would probably laugh / shake my head at anyone who does when I finally see it happen.
I would however use it to send a text to someone while driving.
A lot of these features have been available on Android for quite a while. As in, with a single button press, I can tell my phone to call anyone, to send a text message, or to start voice navigation.
Everything else that Siri has is usually just a glorified Google search.
I don't think you really saw what Siri is capable of doing androids voice actions is a gloried google search with the option to send a text message. Siri can do anything from work out a tip at dinner to look up some ones phone number and addres from your contacts in a second. And as for using it in public there is a mode where u can put it to your head like your making a call to interact with it. So it looks normal yet you get the speed benefit of siri without all the clicking
+1
The even funnier part is that so many of the people who call Apple computers 'toys' are using their PC mainly to play games.
Does Google really pay you enough to make it worthwhile for you to constantly make yourself look so foolish?
You have no basis whatsoever for the statement that "many of the people who call Apple computers 'toys' are using their PC mainly to play games".
Google pays me over $100,000.00 per year to spend a few minutes per day at AI Forums. You caught me! And I get a bonus every time you respond to one of my posts.
Keep it up, sucker. Ka Ching!
Pay no attention to ConradJoe, he's just an old troll best known as tekstud. He keeps getting banned and coming back under a new name.
Though his mannerisms are recognizable, I think that he is diffident of posting using his real name:
Vic Gundotra
See, the issue is your wife isn't a techie/geek and therefore she's irrelevant.
Sigh. I am starting to feel sorry for the anti-Apple techie/geeks. It's going to be such a tough, tough road for them in the coming decade as Apple continues to take over and democratize technology.
Maybe Stallmans head will explode as the irony of the company he loathes the most for perpetuating "closed" actually makes more technology accessible to more people than he could ever dream of!
If there ever was a more stark contrast between theoretical piety and practical reality I don't know what it could be.
Eat your hear out, haters - it's going to be a long, bitter winter of your discontent!
That is unless you stop loathing "clueless newbies" and actually start designing technology that is accessible to anyone without them having to worship at the alter of technology for the sake of the technology.
And by the way, that's the ultimate discipline. Apple is so good at it, they just make it look trivially easy. Don't think so? Show them up! Go on! If it's no big deal, you should be able to do it without copying their look and feel or patents - right?
/crickets
Yup - same old story.... Except Apple has the $$$ and in mobile devices the price advantage.
2014 won't be like 1984, 1994 or 2004 - that's for sure!
An epic summary of the tech world at a crossroads.
I don't think you really saw what Siri is capable of doing androids voice actions is a gloried google search with the option to send a text message. Siri can do anything from work out a tip at dinner to look up some ones phone number and addres from your contacts in a second. And as for using it in public there is a mode where u can put it to your head like your making a call to interact with it. So it looks normal yet you get the speed benefit of siri without all the clicking
I think a lot of people don't get it. And that's fine, not everyone can be an objective and perceptive, especially about technology. Most seem to jump from it's possible/it's not gonna happen to wanting something they saw/read in some sci-fi book.
I think a lot of people really didn't get the iPad when it came out. I certainly felt it wasn't going to be huge but I couldn't conceive a place for it in my digital lifestyle. The iPhone is the same thing. People complained that it didn't have a physical keyboard yet the fastest sinking smartphone makers is the only one who still pushes that design despite trying and failing many times to join the modern smartphone world with full touchscreen I/O.
The part that gets me is the odd option of not looking at the entire service offered by a new tech, but pulling one, often mundane and simple, task it can accomplish and saying that some other tech had that so it's just playing catch up and it's not anything new or exciting.
Siri is huge! Windows, Google, and even Amazon are working quickly to get their own services in place. This will make our digital lifestyle better in the long run and we'll look back in a few years and wonder how we ever lived without it.
This is electricity in the home. This is the light bulb This is the automobile This is the telephone This is the airplane. This is the George Forman grill. Simple at its onset it will grow fast and in ways we can't predict over a very short span of our lives.
?Your phone is a tool for communicating. You shouldn?t be communicating with the phone; you should be communicating with somebody on the other side of the phone,? he added.
What a retarded comment.
Isn't this EXACTLY what a smart phone is all about? It's a PDA (Personal Digital ASSISTANT) and a phone. We don't all have human assistants on the other side of the phone, Rubin. Having the ability to interact with the device via voice is a killer app.
There's no doubt in my mind that Siri is a game changer. I already used voice dialing extensively in iPhone 4, and Siri extensively builds on that whole experience. It's so much faster and more convenient and flat out cooler than digging into Calendar to make an appointment. I can send three or four text messages as I walk between offices without fumbling with a keyboard. Just. Plain. Cool.
And think about it: Siri is a prime candidate to integrate into OS X as well. I already use Siri to manage meetings via voice while I continue to type on my MBP, so why not offer voice control there as well?
I think Rubin and Lees are just trashing Apple, because it purchased for $200 million what they would have paid $4 billion for. ;-)
And as proof of their hypocrisy, watch them come out with Siri-like functionality in their next releases.
I see a lot of folks trying to say Siri isn't ready or Siri isn't much use. I think you're wrong. This really happened in my garage just moments after getting her phone setup:
Wife (a professional musician running late to a gig--as always): Asks me, "Where is Blah House in Dallas?"
Me: "Just ask your phone"
Wife to Siri: "Where is Blah House in Dallas?"
Siri shows map with push pin.
Wife touches push pin
Phone displays address of Blah House in Dallas
Wife punches address into GPS and screeches out of the driveway.
Folks, give it up. My musician wife is in love with the thing.
Well...
Anecdotes like that have no value at all!
...You just wanted it to work!
I agree with most of it I suppose. Apple's purchase of Siri was a great decision. Especially the deep integration it has. I however would not use this in public, and would probably laugh / shake my head at anyone who does when I finally see it happen.
I would however use it to send a text to someone while driving.
A lot of these features have been available on Android for quite a while. As in, with a single button press, I can tell my phone to call anyone, to send a text message, or to start voice navigation.
Everything else that Siri has is usually just a glorified Google search.
Yes this is true. It's particularly great with Google Navigation. Now, prepared to be crucified here.