Using BetterTouchTool visual guide I can see that pressing a trackpad harder or softer, results in the device being able to measure more or less of the finger pad touching the screen. Therefore a hard or soft press may simply be a software calibration problem and could therefore be included as a software update rather than hardware like the 'electrodes' embedded in the apple watch display.
I guessing that on the 6s there's a good chance we'll be able to query Siri with a "Hey Siri," without being plugged into a power source, and possibly this will accompanied by a dedicated voice chip that will allow voice command processing without an internet connection. That, plus the force touch, would make for a compelling upgrade option for anyone holding out on the new, bigger screened phones.
"Hey, Siri" is alright, but it's still not very natural to use, IMO.
The speed of response you see in this Amazon Echo video is not exaggerated. It also doesn't require one to speak as clearly as I have to with Siri. It's just all around faster and more intuitive than Siri has ever been.
Seems to me that Force Touch is just more intuitive and enjoyable to use than the long press. One of the things that fascinates me about Apple is their attention to the subtle, split-second behaviors and thoughts that we process during routine tasks. For instance, I feel a twinge of anxiety and frustration waiting for the menu to pop up during the long press. A quick, Force Touch would likely make me more efficient, and less frustrated. Not only that, but using force to solve problems is in our nature, waiting is certainly not (despite our enlarged forebrain, we're still animals). TV's not working.. give it a whack. Want to jump higher in a game.. press harder! I think people will learn this new behavior very quickly.
And technically, it doesn't seem like it would be much of a challenge relative to Apple's other engineering feats. It doesn't need to be specific, just be able to register when there is extra force applied to the screen in general, while using the capacitance sensor to pinpoint the location.
The force of the touch is certainly more intuitive. Long presses are kind of guessing game when they should be considered long to different people; windows would have people adjust this in some UI panel. But, Apple will not do this.
A tap vs a press is for most people a lot less ambiguous.
I agree with both of you that a force touch is more intuitive than a long press.
It occurs to me that I am equating the two, because the only way I can test the Apple Watch is on the simulator -- where you do a long press of about 1 second with the mouse -- to simulate a force touch on the screen ...
I guessing that on the 6s there's a good chance we'll be able to query Siri with a "Hey Siri," without being plugged into a power source, and possibly this will accompanied by a dedicated voice chip that will allow voice command processing without an internet connection. That, plus the force touch, would make for a compelling upgrade option for anyone holding out on the new, bigger screened phones.
"Hey, Siri" is alright, but it's still not very natural to use, IMO.
The speed of response you see in this Amazon Echo video is not exaggerated. It also doesn't require one to speak as clearly as I have to with Siri. It's just all around faster and more intuitive than Siri has ever been.
No-one cares.
Speech is niche and will forever remain niche. It’s just an inefficient way to interact with a computer. Handy for the blind.
Good to see Ive man up about the protruding camera lens. His disappointment is shared by me.
Great minds think alike.
He didn't "man up" about anything. You're just choosing to believe what you want to believe. 74 million people don't give a shit about this small camera bulge.
Are you saying that the bulge isn't a problem?
Apple does makes misteps sometimes, the camera bulge is one, there's no point in denying it. It's no big deal, they'll correct it the next time. The iPhone 6 is a nice phone and I see what they wanted the phone to feel : slick and rounded and monolithic. But to me the bulge breaks that feel completely, it's a small detail but it ruins everything, the phone really doesn't feel the same as a whole because of it.
Again, no big deal, they can't make everything perfect all the time, they'll probably remove the bulge next time and I'll buy it then. Or maybe I'll wait for the 7, my 5S is too great.
I guessing that on the 6s there's a good chance we'll be able to query Siri with a "Hey Siri," without being plugged into a power source, and possibly this will accompanied by a dedicated voice chip that will allow voice command processing without an internet connection. That, plus the force touch, would make for a compelling upgrade option for anyone holding out on the new, bigger screened phones.
"Hey, Siri" is alright, but it's still not very natural to use, IMO.
The speed of response you see in this Amazon Echo video is not exaggerated. It also doesn't require one to speak as clearly as I have to with Siri. It's just all around faster and more intuitive than Siri has ever been.
[VIDEO]
Mmm ...
That is quite impressive!
I went to Amazon and applied for the $100 off special.
In the meantime, any videos I record will be peppered with: "Alexa, is my significant other cheating on me?".
Unless the iPhone is going to take 3D photos and video, having dual cameras makes no sense at all.
It is far easier for Apple to add a high-resolution sensor camera with a bent light path similar to the Sony Cybershot T-series cameras of years ago. This would keep the iPhone nice and thin. This would give Apple the option of having also a zoom lens while keeping optical stabilization.
Since Sony makes the camera for Apple, it would be easy for Sony to use its old bent light path technology for new cameras for Apple.
Having dual cameras makes a lot of sense. Outside of 3D, or post-blur, which could be nice but a little gimmicky, dual cameras allow for making much better photos with smaller lenses. If the phone gets even thinner they'll need that tech eventually, maybe even with three cameras.
That's what I was thinking. The Taptic Engine and Force Touch are two different things. Force Touch would require a flexible Retina Display, which is not something I'd expect to see in an S update.
The iPhone 6 and 6+ already have "flexible" displays, just like ANYTHING is flexible. Just because it is imperceptable to the human eye, does not mean it is not registrable via electronic sensory devices. However, truthfully, the iPhone 6 and 6+s screen ARE actually visibly flexible - just take your phone, hold it up in a an oblique angle to your vision, so that something is clearly reflecting off the screen, and press down - no great force needed - with one or more fingers on the screen, and you will see the reflection distort due to the flexion of the screen's surface. However, it need not be enough pressure to cause the screen to flex even that much for sensory apparatus to register it, and multiple sensors, placed around the periphery of the screen, coupled with the right algorithm could determine WHERE the finger or fingers are pressing on the screen.
I have no idea but honestly would prefer an LCD screen.
Any particular reason? OLEDs are better than LCDs when it comes to colors, blacks, viewing angles, AND contrast, you know the things that matter when displaying an image.
"Hey, Siri" is alright, but it's still not very natural to use, IMO.
The speed of response you see in this Amazon Echo video is not exaggerated. It also doesn't require one to speak as clearly as I have to with Siri. It's just all around faster and more intuitive than Siri has ever been.
Pretty shocking that's coming from Amazon. I wouldn't have taken it seriously without your commentary.
It looks like 3 syllables is the magic number to make voice activation reliable. I think "hey Siri" would still be effective, but I agree, not as natural in ongoing conversation. I'm guessing Apple will do something similar with Apple TV. Maybe the portability aspect can be replicated by using the Apple Watch around the house.
Edit: Is it really something that's useful, or just something that seems cool, but is ultimately gimmicky/impractical?
Pretty shocking that's coming from Amazon. I wouldn't have taken it seriously without your commentary.
It looks like 3 syllables is the magic number to make voice activation reliable. I think "hey Siri" would still be effective, but I agree, not as natural in ongoing conversation. I'm guessing Apple will do something similar with Apple TV. Maybe the portability aspect can be replicated by using the Apple Watch around the house.
1) They will be doing a SW update that will let you choose your own word. Right now it's either Amazon or Alexa, with Alexa being the default. Once that update is hear I'll probably change it to either Siri or Hey, Siri since I do use Siri more only because I am with my iPhone more often, even though I don't usually say Siri out loud.
2) Another nice feature is that every request you make gets recorded, which you can then read on their website or in their iOS app. You can then submit it to Amazon if it didn't hear you properly or if the results were wrong. I wonder if Siri had that if they couldn't have made it better right away. For example, I asked it, "Who was the tallest US president?" It replied with the right answer, but it didn't give what I would assume as a great answer by also saying that US president's height. I got, "Abraham Lincoln is the tallest US president," and I would have liked to have heard, ""Abraham Lincoln is the tallest US president at 6 feet 4 inches." To get the answer I was looking for I then had to ask, "How tall was Abraham Lincoln?" That may sound trivial, but being able to easily submit that as way to make it more friendly to use is a great feature.
Edit: Is it really something that's useful, or just something that seems cool, but is ultimately gimmicky/impractical?
Surprisingly, everyone in the house uses it daily. Sometimes during dinner or cooking to ask a question that comes up whilst in conversation. Other times walking by, like asking the weather on the way to bathroom without needing to stop because it's so quick. Other times just to ask the time. It's also great to play your uploaded music (up 250,000 songs, I think), a huge variety of radio stations, redone playlists for different genres and modes, and even telling it to play the soundtrack from a movie, which usually means 30 seconds clips of each song off the album, which is surprisingly used more in my house than I would have expected. Note that I live with some techtarded people so the idea that they have taken to Echo so quickly and use it more now than they did a month ago is pretty telling to me that it's a great product. If you have Amazon Fresh in your area the reminders and notes should be even better for adding to your shopping list. You tell you something is low in the fridge or cupboard and she will note it for you. I really do have high praise for it despite the oddly negative reviews.
Could it be the force touch is for the home button, replacing the mechanical components and replacing it with the non moving force touch implementation. To me it seams like the most practical implementation rather than the entire screen.
I really do have high praise for it despite the oddly negative reviews.
I'm not sure what it is, but some people just don't play well with voice assistants. I rarely, if ever have issues with Siri, but then I hear people saying "she's so stupid, she never understands."
Of course, they'll usually be giving very poorly worded or vague commands, or asking for stupid things. But I've been pleased with Siri since I first got an iOS device that had her installed (iPA), and even today I still get a little wonderment when she surprises me with a particularly sharp answer.
For example, a few days ago I asked her to name a song, and rather than the usual "Sounds like X by X", she said "I"m guessing that this guy Pharrell Williams is really 'Happy'."
I'm not sure what it is, but some people just don't play well with voice assistants. I rarely, if ever have issues with Siri, but then I hear people saying "she's so stupid, she never understands."
That's the holy grail of voice interoperation. What we do with ease is difficult for a computer. Then when you get to accents* for people speaking English as a second language some of us are much better at understanding accents than others. Frankly I'm horrible with that aspect of language.
Which brings me to my next example of why Amazon Echo is better than Siri… the Echo app has a way to train your Echo to understand your voice better. We know words are just a collection of phonemes so I would think it wouldn't be hard for a linguist to devise a paragraph or even a series of words individually spoken, that can then be interpreted by the device to better understand how you speak. I've mentioned this as a feature I wanted with Siri since day one (although my speech is personally ideal for Siri).
For example, a few days ago I asked her to name a song, and rather than the usual "Sounds like X by X", she said "I"m guessing that this guy Pharrell Williams is really 'Happy'."
Echo has some of that jovial personality built-in, but not nearly as much as Siri.
* Not just accents, but other speak issues that can be both physical and psychological.
edit: Here are couple screenshots from the iOS apps. Why doesn't Apple allow anything like this to help make Siri better?
1) They will be doing a SW update that will let you choose your own word. Right now it's either Amazon or Alexa, with Alexa being the default. Once that update is hear I'll probably change it to either Siri or Hey, Siri since I do use Siri more only because I am with my iPhone more often, even though I don't usually say Siri out loud.
2) Another nice feature is that every request you make gets recorded, which you can then read on their website or in their iOS app. You can then submit it to Amazon if it didn't hear you properly or if the results were wrong. I wonder if Siri had that if they couldn't have made it better right away. For example, I asked it, "Who was the tallest US president?" It replied with the right answer, but it didn't give what I would assume as a great answer by also saying that US president's height. I got, "Abraham Lincoln is the tallest US president," and I would have liked to have heard, ""Abraham Lincoln is the tallest US president at 6 feet 4 inches." To get the answer I was looking for I then had to ask, "How tall was Abraham Lincoln?" That may sound trivial, but being able to easily submit that as way to make it more friendly to use is a great feature.
Surprisingly, everyone in the house uses it daily. Sometimes during dinner or cooking to ask a question that comes up whilst in conversation. Other times walking by, like asking the weather on the way to bathroom without needing to stop because it's so quick. Other times just to ask the time. It's also great to play your uploaded music (up 250,000 songs, I think), a huge variety of radio stations, redone playlists for different genres and modes, and even telling it to play the soundtrack from a movie, which usually means 30 seconds clips of each song off the album, which is surprisingly used more in my house than I would have expected. Note that I live with some techtarded people so the idea that they have taken to Echo so quickly and use it more now than they did a month ago is pretty telling to me that it's a great product. If you have Amazon Fresh in your area the reminders and notes should be even better for adding to your shopping list. You tell you something is low in the fridge or cupboard and she will note it for you. I really do have high praise for it despite the oddly negative reviews.
1) That'd be a great way to test reliability of a shorter name like "Siri," I hope you'll share your results at some point.
2) Sounds like Amazon has a really well thought out product, but I don't think it'd be worth it (effort/$) for me (or probably others), except if it integrated with my other digital products, which are all Apple.
That said, I've always thought of the Apple TV as evolving into something like what the Echo is, since the common denominator for the television is that it is the figurative (and often literal) hub of the home. I imagine the use case for the Echo would be enhanced with an accompanying screen, although with some obvious limitations. It seems obvious that's where we're headed with the Apple TV, since it will be the central hub for home kit. I'd guess that despite how good of a product the Echo may be, it's not going to be able to compete with the Apple TV once it gains additional capabilities. I'm totally fine with this of course, as I'm an unabashed Apple fan. Also, I have a hard time rooting for Amazon given its willingness to strong arm others, abuse its ebook monopoly power, and because of the ridiculous DOJ fiasco.
Thanks for those use case examples, interesting to hear. I tried finding reviews for the Echo but it doesn't seem Amazon is allowing them on their site. Not sure what to make of that.
"Apple has called Force Touch its "most significant new sensing capability since Multi-Touch," lending some amount of credence to the idea that it could expand beyond the Apple Watch. Such a move could also require a corresponding switch to a flexible display material, however %u2014 electrodes surrounding the Apple Watch's OLED display detect the level of deformation caused by the user's press, a measurement not possible with rigid displays."
How flexible can the display be if it is Sapphire Chrystal? The Apple Watch's display is just as rigid as the iPhone's.
It seems it's flexibility allows the detector to curve with the Apple Watch display rather than be several millimetres below if it was rigid. It uses disturbances in the magnetic field and this information is paired to sensors(vibration?) information to determine between a tap and a press.
1) That'd be a great way to test reliability of a shorter name like "Siri," I hope you'll share your results at some point.
I will.
2) Sounds like Amazon has a really well thought out product, but I don't think it'd be worth it (effort/$) for me (or probably others), except if it integrated with my other digital products, which are all Apple.
It does, because you can use your iPhone and Mac in various ways to connect to it. Other than that it's a separate device that Apple doesn't compete with at all (at this point).
That said, I've always though of the Apple TV as evolving into something like what the Echo is, as the common denominator for the television is that it is a figurative (and often literal) hub of the home. I imagine the use case for the Echo would be enhance with an accompanying screen, although with some obvious limitations. But it seems obvious that's where we're headed with the Apple TV, since it will be the central hub for home kit. It seems that depistenhowngood the Exho may be, it's not going to be able to compete with the Apple TV once it gains additional capabilities. I'm totally fine with this of course, as I'm an unabashed Apple fan. Also, I have s hard time rooting for Amazon given its willingness to strong arm others, abuse its book monopoly power, and because of the ridiculous DOJ fiasco.
I think for Apple to really take the home seriously they need some radically new products. Myself (and many others on this site) want Apple to release an ?Home Server that will be your digital hub. I think it was about 3 years ago that Tim Cook said iTunes, as in the Mac/PC, is no longer the digital hub, and yet we still can't edit our music and movie content metadata in the Music and Movies apps on an iDevice, or access any iTunes Match content in iCloud. That means I still need iTunes as my digital hub.
I hate that I recently spent $500 on a Mac mini whose only job is to stream iTunes content to Macs, iDevices and an Apple TV in the house from a USB 3.0 connected 4x4TB RAID10 over GigE. My AirPort Extreme really should have an ARM chip with iOS being able to do all this for me. It could even be an actual separate system inside the AEBS that shows up on the network as another system with some extra ports in back for USB 3.0 and even a display. (But I think Apple could make it more clever than that by allowing this dedicated iTunes Server appliance be accessed via the GUI of the AirPort Utility or a separate utility.)
If not that, then into a new Apple TV design. It's already ARM and iOS so I don't think allowing for it to run what is effectively the iTunes Library and pull data directly from USB connected storage would be a major hurdle for Apple. That concept would be probably $199, and then you could buy how ever many satellite Apple TVs for $99 or less that would essentially pull from that main Apple TV acting as a digital hub. This could then further be used with other devices, similar to Amazon Echo for your home that can be used as a digital personal assistance.
PS: My other ideas for a revamped Apple TV is to have each family member be able to setup how they watch TV (i.e.: cable or sat content) and other content, as well as have the Apple TV learn their patterns. This way some that loves the Speed network isn't getting to get the Golf channel showing up in our now hundreds of channels of things we don't watch. Personalized for each view, which I'd ideally like to see get selected simply by picking up the Apple Remote which has Touch ID-like system to know who is in control of the TV at that moment. Could also be a way to block children from certain channels and viewing times automatically.
Thanks for those use case examples, interesting to hear. I tried finding reviews for the Echo but it doesn't seem Amazon is allowing them on their site. Not sure what to make of that.
My guess is because it's essentially still in beta. Once it's sold to everyone without requesting an invite I think the regular sale page will be up and running. But it does seem suspect, and if I didn't have my anecdotal experience with it I would definitely think there is something fishy about their lack of user reviews.
"Hey, Siri" is alright, but it's still not very natural to use, IMO.
The speed of response you see in this Amazon Echo video is not exaggerated. It also doesn't require one to speak as clearly as I have to with Siri. It's just all around faster and more intuitive than Siri has ever been.
Well it's not confined to a the shitty pick up microphone on a phone but has that "far field" technology in it. I really like that kind of ad though. Apples ads come across as a bit hipster, thats just explaining what it does.
Back to force touch I think it could be huge. I expect the force to be fairly instantaneous otherwise they could just use a delay but we are going to learn to interact with the phone differently.
My guess is a forced touch controls the window not just the content. That is.
Normal touch and move up = scroll up. Force touch and move up is close window or app.
Normal touch and move down = scroll down Force touch and move down = bring window to half size.
Force touch flick right = Go Back. ( like the gesture which originates outside the screen now) Force touch flick left= Go Forward if relevant.
I can imagine this being instantaneous. You are scrolling down an article and think it's rubbbish so you close it up by applying slightly more pressure ( instinctively) and flicking up.
Comments
Using BetterTouchTool visual guide I can see that pressing a trackpad harder or softer, results in the device being able to measure more or less of the finger pad touching the screen. Therefore a hard or soft press may simply be a software calibration problem and could therefore be included as a software update rather than hardware like the 'electrodes' embedded in the apple watch display.
"Hey, Siri" is alright, but it's still not very natural to use, IMO.
The speed of response you see in this Amazon Echo video is not exaggerated. It also doesn't require one to speak as clearly as I have to with Siri. It's just all around faster and more intuitive than Siri has ever been.
[VIDEO]
I agree with both of you that a force touch is more intuitive than a long press.
It occurs to me that I am equating the two, because the only way I can test the Apple Watch is on the simulator -- where you do a long press of about 1 second with the mouse -- to simulate a force touch on the screen ...
Anyway, I'm willing to be convinced.
I guessing that on the 6s there's a good chance we'll be able to query Siri with a "Hey Siri," without being plugged into a power source, and possibly this will accompanied by a dedicated voice chip that will allow voice command processing without an internet connection. That, plus the force touch, would make for a compelling upgrade option for anyone holding out on the new, bigger screened phones.
"Hey, Siri" is alright, but it's still not very natural to use, IMO.
The speed of response you see in this Amazon Echo video is not exaggerated. It also doesn't require one to speak as clearly as I have to with Siri. It's just all around faster and more intuitive than Siri has ever been.
No-one cares.
Speech is niche and will forever remain niche. It’s just an inefficient way to interact with a computer. Handy for the blind.
You've been watching too many sci-fi movies.
Yep.
Good to see Ive man up about the protruding camera lens. His disappointment is shared by me.
Great minds think alike.
He didn't "man up" about anything. You're just choosing to believe what you want to believe. 74 million people don't give a shit about this small camera bulge.
Are you saying that the bulge isn't a problem?
Apple does makes misteps sometimes, the camera bulge is one, there's no point in denying it. It's no big deal, they'll correct it the next time. The iPhone 6 is a nice phone and I see what they wanted the phone to feel : slick and rounded and monolithic. But to me the bulge breaks that feel completely, it's a small detail but it ruins everything, the phone really doesn't feel the same as a whole because of it.
Again, no big deal, they can't make everything perfect all the time, they'll probably remove the bulge next time and I'll buy it then. Or maybe I'll wait for the 7, my 5S is too great.
Mmm ...
That is quite impressive!
I went to Amazon and applied for the $100 off special.
In the meantime, any videos I record will be peppered with: "Alexa, is my significant other cheating on me?".
1. Force Touch - easy to predict
2. Dual-Camera iPhone - nonsense.
Unless the iPhone is going to take 3D photos and video, having dual cameras makes no sense at all.
It is far easier for Apple to add a high-resolution sensor camera with a bent light path similar to the Sony Cybershot T-series cameras of years ago. This would keep the iPhone nice and thin. This would give Apple the option of having also a zoom lens while keeping optical stabilization.
Since Sony makes the camera for Apple, it would be easy for Sony to use its old bent light path technology for new cameras for Apple.
Having dual cameras makes a lot of sense. Outside of 3D, or post-blur, which could be nice but a little gimmicky, dual cameras allow for making much better photos with smaller lenses. If the phone gets even thinner they'll need that tech eventually, maybe even with three cameras.
That's what I was thinking. The Taptic Engine and Force Touch are two different things. Force Touch would require a flexible Retina Display, which is not something I'd expect to see in an S update.
The iPhone 6 and 6+ already have "flexible" displays, just like ANYTHING is flexible. Just because it is imperceptable to the human eye, does not mean it is not registrable via electronic sensory devices. However, truthfully, the iPhone 6 and 6+s screen ARE actually visibly flexible - just take your phone, hold it up in a an oblique angle to your vision, so that something is clearly reflecting off the screen, and press down - no great force needed - with one or more fingers on the screen, and you will see the reflection distort due to the flexion of the screen's surface. However, it need not be enough pressure to cause the screen to flex even that much for sensory apparatus to register it, and multiple sensors, placed around the periphery of the screen, coupled with the right algorithm could determine WHERE the finger or fingers are pressing on the screen.
I have no idea but honestly would prefer an LCD screen.
Any particular reason? OLEDs are better than LCDs when it comes to colors, blacks, viewing angles, AND contrast, you know the things that matter when displaying an image.
"Hey, Siri" is alright, but it's still not very natural to use, IMO.
The speed of response you see in this Amazon Echo video is not exaggerated. It also doesn't require one to speak as clearly as I have to with Siri. It's just all around faster and more intuitive than Siri has ever been.
Pretty shocking that's coming from Amazon. I wouldn't have taken it seriously without your commentary.
It looks like 3 syllables is the magic number to make voice activation reliable. I think "hey Siri" would still be effective, but I agree, not as natural in ongoing conversation. I'm guessing Apple will do something similar with Apple TV. Maybe the portability aspect can be replicated by using the Apple Watch around the house.
Edit: Is it really something that's useful, or just something that seems cool, but is ultimately gimmicky/impractical?
1) They will be doing a SW update that will let you choose your own word. Right now it's either Amazon or Alexa, with Alexa being the default. Once that update is hear I'll probably change it to either Siri or Hey, Siri since I do use Siri more only because I am with my iPhone more often, even though I don't usually say Siri out loud.
2) Another nice feature is that every request you make gets recorded, which you can then read on their website or in their iOS app. You can then submit it to Amazon if it didn't hear you properly or if the results were wrong. I wonder if Siri had that if they couldn't have made it better right away. For example, I asked it, "Who was the tallest US president?" It replied with the right answer, but it didn't give what I would assume as a great answer by also saying that US president's height. I got, "Abraham Lincoln is the tallest US president," and I would have liked to have heard, ""Abraham Lincoln is the tallest US president at 6 feet 4 inches." To get the answer I was looking for I then had to ask, "How tall was Abraham Lincoln?" That may sound trivial, but being able to easily submit that as way to make it more friendly to use is a great feature.
Surprisingly, everyone in the house uses it daily. Sometimes during dinner or cooking to ask a question that comes up whilst in conversation. Other times walking by, like asking the weather on the way to bathroom without needing to stop because it's so quick. Other times just to ask the time. It's also great to play your uploaded music (up 250,000 songs, I think), a huge variety of radio stations, redone playlists for different genres and modes, and even telling it to play the soundtrack from a movie, which usually means 30 seconds clips of each song off the album, which is surprisingly used more in my house than I would have expected. Note that I live with some techtarded people so the idea that they have taken to Echo so quickly and use it more now than they did a month ago is pretty telling to me that it's a great product. If you have Amazon Fresh in your area the reminders and notes should be even better for adding to your shopping list. You tell you something is low in the fridge or cupboard and she will note it for you. I really do have high praise for it despite the oddly negative reviews.
To me it seams like the most practical implementation rather than the entire screen.
No-one cares.
Speech is niche and will forever remain niche. It’s just an inefficient way to interact with a computer. Handy for the blind.
You've been watching too many sci-fi movies.
Nope. I want to talk to my computer/house. I want it to have Majel Barrett Roddenberry's voice too. VR is niche, voice is not.
I really do have high praise for it despite the oddly negative reviews.
I'm not sure what it is, but some people just don't play well with voice assistants. I rarely, if ever have issues with Siri, but then I hear people saying "she's so stupid, she never understands."
Of course, they'll usually be giving very poorly worded or vague commands, or asking for stupid things. But I've been pleased with Siri since I first got an iOS device that had her installed (iPA), and even today I still get a little wonderment when she surprises me with a particularly sharp answer.
For example, a few days ago I asked her to name a song, and rather than the usual "Sounds like X by X", she said "I"m guessing that this guy Pharrell Williams is really 'Happy'."
Small, but brilliant IMO.
That's the holy grail of voice interoperation. What we do with ease is difficult for a computer. Then when you get to accents* for people speaking English as a second language some of us are much better at understanding accents than others. Frankly I'm horrible with that aspect of language.
Which brings me to my next example of why Amazon Echo is better than Siri… the Echo app has a way to train your Echo to understand your voice better. We know words are just a collection of phonemes so I would think it wouldn't be hard for a linguist to devise a paragraph or even a series of words individually spoken, that can then be interpreted by the device to better understand how you speak. I've mentioned this as a feature I wanted with Siri since day one (although my speech is personally ideal for Siri).
Echo has some of that jovial personality built-in, but not nearly as much as Siri.
* Not just accents, but other speak issues that can be both physical and psychological.
edit: Here are couple screenshots from the iOS apps. Why doesn't Apple allow anything like this to help make Siri better?
1) That'd be a great way to test reliability of a shorter name like "Siri," I hope you'll share your results at some point.
2) Sounds like Amazon has a really well thought out product, but I don't think it'd be worth it (effort/$) for me (or probably others), except if it integrated with my other digital products, which are all Apple.
That said, I've always thought of the Apple TV as evolving into something like what the Echo is, since the common denominator for the television is that it is the figurative (and often literal) hub of the home. I imagine the use case for the Echo would be enhanced with an accompanying screen, although with some obvious limitations. It seems obvious that's where we're headed with the Apple TV, since it will be the central hub for home kit. I'd guess that despite how good of a product the Echo may be, it's not going to be able to compete with the Apple TV once it gains additional capabilities. I'm totally fine with this of course, as I'm an unabashed Apple fan. Also, I have a hard time rooting for Amazon given its willingness to strong arm others, abuse its ebook monopoly power, and because of the ridiculous DOJ fiasco.
Thanks for those use case examples, interesting to hear. I tried finding reviews for the Echo but it doesn't seem Amazon is allowing them on their site. Not sure what to make of that.
Edit: typos
"Apple has called Force Touch its "most significant new sensing capability since Multi-Touch," lending some amount of credence to the idea that it could expand beyond the Apple Watch. Such a move could also require a corresponding switch to a flexible display material, however %u2014 electrodes surrounding the Apple Watch's OLED display detect the level of deformation caused by the user's press, a measurement not possible with rigid displays."
How flexible can the display be if it is Sapphire Chrystal?
The Apple Watch's display is just as rigid as the iPhone's.
It seems it's flexibility allows the detector to curve with the Apple Watch display rather than be several millimetres below if it was rigid. It uses disturbances in the magnetic field and this information is paired to sensors(vibration?) information to determine between a tap and a press.
I will.
It does, because you can use your iPhone and Mac in various ways to connect to it. Other than that it's a separate device that Apple doesn't compete with at all (at this point).
I think for Apple to really take the home seriously they need some radically new products. Myself (and many others on this site) want Apple to release an ?Home Server that will be your digital hub. I think it was about 3 years ago that Tim Cook said iTunes, as in the Mac/PC, is no longer the digital hub, and yet we still can't edit our music and movie content metadata in the Music and Movies apps on an iDevice, or access any iTunes Match content in iCloud. That means I still need iTunes as my digital hub.
I hate that I recently spent $500 on a Mac mini whose only job is to stream iTunes content to Macs, iDevices and an Apple TV in the house from a USB 3.0 connected 4x4TB RAID10 over GigE. My AirPort Extreme really should have an ARM chip with iOS being able to do all this for me. It could even be an actual separate system inside the AEBS that shows up on the network as another system with some extra ports in back for USB 3.0 and even a display. (But I think Apple could make it more clever than that by allowing this dedicated iTunes Server appliance be accessed via the GUI of the AirPort Utility or a separate utility.)
If not that, then into a new Apple TV design. It's already ARM and iOS so I don't think allowing for it to run what is effectively the iTunes Library and pull data directly from USB connected storage would be a major hurdle for Apple. That concept would be probably $199, and then you could buy how ever many satellite Apple TVs for $99 or less that would essentially pull from that main Apple TV acting as a digital hub. This could then further be used with other devices, similar to Amazon Echo for your home that can be used as a digital personal assistance.
PS: My other ideas for a revamped Apple TV is to have each family member be able to setup how they watch TV (i.e.: cable or sat content) and other content, as well as have the Apple TV learn their patterns. This way some that loves the Speed network isn't getting to get the Golf channel showing up in our now hundreds of channels of things we don't watch. Personalized for each view, which I'd ideally like to see get selected simply by picking up the Apple Remote which has Touch ID-like system to know who is in control of the TV at that moment. Could also be a way to block children from certain channels and viewing times automatically.
My guess is because it's essentially still in beta. Once it's sold to everyone without requesting an invite I think the regular sale page will be up and running. But it does seem suspect, and if I didn't have my anecdotal experience with it I would definitely think there is something fishy about their lack of user reviews.
Well it's not confined to a the shitty pick up microphone on a phone but has that "far field" technology in it. I really like that kind of ad though. Apples ads come across as a bit hipster, thats just explaining what it does.
I bet SIRI in a TV is just as good.
My guess is a forced touch controls the window not just the content. That is.
Normal touch and move up = scroll up.
Force touch and move up is close window or app.
Normal touch and move down = scroll down
Force touch and move down = bring window to half size.
Force touch flick right = Go Back. ( like the gesture which originates outside the screen now)
Force touch flick left= Go Forward if relevant.
I can imagine this being instantaneous. You are scrolling down an article and think it's rubbbish so you close it up by applying slightly more pressure ( instinctively) and flicking up.