The way people interact with computers is moving from text input to spoken questions and commands. That’s the assessment of Kleiner Perkins partner Mary Meeker, who presented her annual Internet Trends report Wednesday at Vox Media-owned Re/code’s Code Conference.
The computer interface is shifting from the keyboard to the microphone as more people use speech-based digital assistants such as Apple’s (AAPL) Siri. Other companies in the field include Amazon.com‘s (AMZN) Alexa, Microsoft‘s (MSFT) Cortana, Alphabet‘s (GOOGL) Google Now and Nuance Communications‘ (NUAN) Nina.
The use of voice-based search and virtual assistants has soared as speech recognition has improved significantly in recent years, Meeker said. She says the percentage of smartphone owners in the U.S. who use voice assistants has risen from 30% in 2013 to 65% last year.
Google voice search queries are now more than seven times the level seen in 2010, Meeker said.
China search leader Baidu (BIDU) is seeing even faster adoption of voice search and speech-recognition apps because typing Chinese on a small cellphone keypad is more difficult than typing in English, Meeker said. Baidu Chief Scientist Andrew Ng expects at least half of searches will be through images or speech by 2020.
A survey by MindMeld, a provider of intelligent conversational voice interfaces, found that people find voice apps most useful in situations when their hands or vision are occupied. Respondents also say it’s faster to speak a question or command than to type it.
The transition from keyboards to microphones for computer input, however, is still in its early innings, Meeker said.
The next step for voice-based digital assistants is for companies to open up their application program interfaces to third parties, she said. Amazon has already done that with Alexa and its Echo smart speakers. Google is taking similar action.
Apple is rumored to be developing a rival product to the Amazon Echo and plans to announce a software development kit to open up the device to third-party developers at its Worldwide Developers Conference June 13-17 in San Francisco.
In a research report Wednesday, RBC Capital Markets analyst Amit Daryanani said he expects Siri to be center stage at the company’s annual conference. He predicts Apple will showcase a Siri SDK for third-party developers to expand use cases for Siri and lay the groundwork for a Wi-Fi-enabled personal assistant device like Amazon Echo.
The voice-first user interface has gone mainstream
A quantitative study of Amazon’s Echo, Apple’s Siri and Google’s OK Google shows where — and how — they're being used by consumers. BY BEN BAJARIN JUN 7, 2016, 12:00P
Search Google for full article.
Going forward I walked away from this study with confidence that the voice-user interface has gone mainstream. What’s more, mainstream consumers seem to recognize its value and convenience. Consider these statements from consumers:
It does not always work, but when it does it is very useful: 55 percent strongly agree I would use my devices voice capabilities more if I could speak to it more naturally: 43 percent strongly agree If it worked more often, I would use my device's voice assistants more: 48 percent strongly agree I want my device’s voice interface to integrate better with more devices and apps that I use regularly: 66 percent strongly agree I am not comfortable speaking to my technology: 41 percent strongly disagree It is encouraging, from a sentiment perspective, that voice looks to be a natural extension of our keyboard/mouse/touch-based input and output methods. Consumers seem to recognize its value, and want it to work in more ways. I’ve long said that the true test of a great feature very early in its life cycle is when it combines both delight and frustration. Once you use it, you’re hooked, but you want it to be great all the time, because you can see the potential. This is why we snuck this question into the sentiment segment to see if consumers agreed: 47 percent strongly agree and 38 percent somewhat agree that when their voice assistant works, it's great, and when it doesn’t, they get irritated.
The battle for the voice-based assistant is on. This is another area where the one with the biggest ecosystem built around their voice UI/voice OS has the best shot of being "hired" by the masses.
“Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”
But it’s not hard to see how the startup’s tech could feed into Siri. On its homepage, VocalIQ says its main advantage over current voice assistants is its ability to ask users clarifying questions when it misunderstands commands – just like a real person would.
Furthermore, it can remember earlier responses and know how to reply to you based on context. Siri, Cortana and Google Voice can’t even remember the last question you asked.
VocalIQ says you shouldn’t have to learn to to know how to speak to voice assistants, they should be learning how to speak to you. That sounds like a good plan to me, so hopefully Apple makes fruitful use of the technology.
It seems like such a simple idea but I can see how it makes for very quick training of the system. Also how it can help deal with a much bigger range of possible outcomes that would come with the Siri SDK. They could use follow-up questions to not only understand the query
better but to filter out which apps can and should handle the response
at that time.
I see people generating there own shorthand with Siri in a short amount of time to point that Siri can tell the person speaking isn't the authorized user.
If Voice-user interface has gone mainstream why does every device with this interface still have a screen?
When the touch screen user interface went mainstream why did phones still have hardware buttons for some functions or speakers for audio feedback? Removing the screen isn't something that will be required once voice-user interface goes mainstream. Although having said that devices like Amazon Echo show that it is getting to the point were Voice only interfaces are becoming a reality. Being able to ask your phone to open a specific app or show you photos from Christmas last year would be very pointless though if your phone no longer had a screen.
If Voice-user interface has gone mainstream why does every device with this interface still have a screen?
When the touch screen user interface went mainstream why did phones still have hardware buttons for some functions or speakers for audio feedback? Removing the screen isn't something that will be required once voice-user interface goes mainstream. Although having said that devices like Amazon Echo show that it is getting to the point were Voice only interfaces are becoming a reality. Being able to ask your phone to open a specific app or show you photos from Christmas last year would be very pointless though if your phone no longer had a screen.
Yes when touch screens came out the whole device was re imagined for that interface as the primary. Yes still has buttons for reasons that sometimes buttons are still better. We will still have touchscreens because sometimes they will still be better. Echo shows a device were the voice-interface is the primary interface but is highly impersonal, like a lounge room TV, a cloths washer or the microwave.
I think to say it's mainstream then there should be a good or even a few good examples around of personal devices designed from the ground up as personnel voice devices.
When the touch screen user interface went mainstream why did phones still have hardware buttons for some functions or speakers for audio feedback? Removing the screen isn't something that will be required once voice-user interface goes mainstream. Although having said that devices like Amazon Echo show that it is getting to the point were Voice only interfaces are becoming a reality. Being able to ask your phone to open a specific app or show you photos from Christmas last year would be very pointless though if your phone no longer had a screen.
Yes when touch screens came out the whole device was re imagined for that interface as the primary. Yes still has buttons for reasons that sometimes buttons are still better. We will still have touchscreens because sometimes they will still be better. Echo shows a device were the voice-interface is the primary interface but is highly impersonal, like a lounge room TV, a cloths washer or the microwave.
I think to say it's mainstream then there should be a good or even a few good examples around of personal devices designed from the ground up as personnel voice devices.
I agree that they shouldn't be saying voice interface is mainstream. Like you said the Echo isn't really a personal device, nor is it a mass market device. I'm just not sure we will get to a point anytime soon where we will have a personal voice that has a voice interface as main method of interacting with the device and no screen. I think it's more likely the voice interface will be in addition to the screen but that the voice interface will be far more capable than what we are seeing today. Allowing you to do much more with your device without needing to look at the screen.
Bottom line is that the battle for personal computing is moving from mobility and touch input, to voice input.
Amazon, Google, MS are all making strides. Apple needs to at least match them. It doesn't have to lead, it just has to maintain competitive parity.
lest it follows Blackberry's lead ("The future of smartphones is touch screen..." RIMM: "WRONG... better chiclets!!!!")
Cameras, memory, speed... eventually will be commodity specs.
Interactivity, bio aware computing, voice motion commands, especially contextual awareness (You're standing in front of a restaurant, and ask, "What are the reviews for this place", and you get Urbanspoon reviews for 'this place')and the back end services network integration are the future.
If I were to rephrase the title it would be "The success of future generations of Apple Products may rest on Siri"
Marco Arment really lost it when he wrote up this point the way he did. He's become a hand-wringing Chicken Little who'd rather quiver with "worrisome" thoughts about Apple than use his head about how steely the company is, how driven by material necessity it is.
Of course Google is way ahead in context-aware search, just like Apple is miles ahead of everyone in hardware, and infinitely ahead of everyone in good taste. And of course Apple knows that Siri's been leap-frogged, and is coldly planning to leap-frog right back.
I wouldn't go near that group of tea-baggers, Arment, Siracusa, Thompson, and sometimes even Gruber, when it comes to their "concerned" nagging of Apple on services and software. One of these days, they're going to cause some C-level executive to say to hell with these whiners, I'm going back to England or wherever.
I'm an iPhone 6S+ owner, running the latest OS, of course.
My wife's work just got her a new Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge.
In summary: Ok Google running on her phone makes Siri look like a big piece of shit, pure and simple.
With Siri, you have to confirm to its many idiosyncrasies; it's vice-versa with Ok Google. No matter what I threw at it, it conformed to me, my diction, speech patterns, ebonics, corner store owner, you name it, the thing just worked.
Oh yea, that: "It just works."
Right.. Funny how that's not the case for me... And I've tried it on 3 Android... Whatever... You speak "da truth" (sic)
Well, that's because the regular posters post here less frequently and a lot of new trolls have jumped onto it.. Oh, were you talking about Artificial Intellegence? My bad!
I use Siri without issue every day, from sending quick notifications to my wife to getting directions to setting reminders.
I haven't compared it to other services, but for what I use it for it works extremely well, and I've very reliant on it. As far as I'm concerned, it works great and people are idiots not to be using it more fully. I'm glad to hear other services work well too -- it will keep all the companies working hard to improve their products.
Lucky you that Siri works for you. I am Dutch speaking and Siri in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium is absolutely useless. It understands roughly 1 out of 5 commands thrown at it, and it almost never understands the context. The new Apple TV was delayed in Belgium because of the issues with the Dutch speaking Siri, so the French speaking community in Belgium had to go to France to buy one
I use Siri without issue every day, from sending quick notifications to my wife to getting directions to setting reminders.
I haven't compared it to other services, but for what I use it for it works extremely well, and I've very reliant on it. As far as I'm concerned, it works great and people are idiots not to be using it more fully. I'm glad to hear other services work well too -- it will keep all the companies working hard to improve their products.
Lucky you that Siri works for you. I am Dutch speaking and Siri in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium is absolutely useless. It understands roughly 1 out of 5 commands thrown at it, and it almost never understands the context. The new Apple TV was delayed in Belgium because of the issues with the Dutch speaking Siri, so the French speaking community in Belgium had to go to France to buy one
And I would love to change the voice. To Scarlet Johansson please!
I think AI will really improve quickly for the internet of things (I hate that name, but whatever). I can see remote management with voice commands getting huge in the next few years. But I'm still not planning to let Siri drive my car any time soon.
It could be really useful on the Mac for doing complex actions that would either take an Applescript or multiple actions e.g 'Hey Siri, move all the PNGs from this folder (swirl cursor over folder) to this folder (swirl cursor over destination)', 'save all the images out of this Word document and open them in Photoshop', 'find all the files that have been edited in the last couple of days', 'build a playlist of all the songs I've listened to in the last 3 months and put it on my iPhone', 'show me all the emails I exchanged with... in the last month and make a PDF', 'I need to make a GIF, recommend an app', 'start recording what I do in this window', 'track how long I work on this project's files'.
Some commands could be verified before executing and have an undo for ones that could go wrong. It would make it easy to do scripted tasks without learning a scripting language.
On the iPhone, I don't think people want to be talking to their phones in public. It's ok in the car or home but people are going to be out most of the time so adding texting ability with silent replies would help and again, it can do more complex actions than doing it manually like typing 'mark emails read' without even opening Mail.
I don't think AI or Siri is an important feature for computing products though. It's just a useful addition.
Using Siri for some basic functions is ok at best. This is another example where Apple is getting into too many things like a certain period of time I remember not too long ago. What happens is Apple becomes ok at a lot of things. They really dropped the ball with Siri. They launch it as a prime feature and do not push it forward aggressively to stay ahead of the competition. I am not sure this strategy will continue to work for Apple.
Bottom line is that the battle for personal computing is moving from mobility and touch input, to voice input.
Amazon, Google, MS are all making strides. Apple needs to at least match them. It doesn't have to lead, it just has to maintain competitive parity.
lest it follows Blackberry's lead ("The future of smartphones is touch screen..." RIMM: "WRONG... better chiclets!!!!")
Cameras, memory, speed... eventually will be commodity specs.
Interactivity, bio aware computing, voice motion commands, especially contextual awareness (You're standing in front of a restaurant, and ask, "What are the reviews for this place", and you get Urbanspoon reviews for 'this place')and the back end services network integration are the future.
If I were to rephrase the title it would be "The success of future generations of Apple Products may rest on Siri"
I wouldn't go near that group of tea-baggers, Arment, Siracusa, Thompson, and sometimes even Gruber, when it comes to their "concerned" nagging of Apple
yeah it was apparent Arment became a concern-troll long ago, and id been observing the same in Gruber too. what is it about these guys? some sort of tech-blogger echo-chamber effect. maybe its because they made and make their money discuss Apple every single day, so their thoughts eventually lead to worry as part of some human neurosis, or something...
Well, that's because the regular posters post here less frequently and a lot of new trolls have jumped onto it.. Oh, were you talking about Artificial Intellegence? My bad!
many of the AI regular posters have moved to their own private forum, when the site was really being hit by obnoxious trolls last year. ive long since blocked troll-king Sog (who takes the crown from previous monarch Ben Frost, who's took his own reign of terror to MacRumors after a permaban here). does Sog still post his personality disorder-induced dulusional rants about Cook?
Comments
The computer interface is shifting from the keyboard to the microphone as more people use speech-based digital assistants such as Apple’s (AAPL) Siri. Other companies in the field include Amazon.com‘s (AMZN) Alexa, Microsoft‘s (MSFT) Cortana, Alphabet‘s (GOOGL) Google Now and Nuance Communications‘ (NUAN) Nina.
The use of voice-based search and virtual assistants has soared as speech recognition has improved significantly in recent years, Meeker said. She says the percentage of smartphone owners in the U.S. who use voice assistants has risen from 30% in 2013 to 65% last year.
Google voice search queries are now more than seven times the level seen in 2010, Meeker said.
China search leader Baidu (BIDU) is seeing even faster adoption of voice search and speech-recognition apps because typing Chinese on a small cellphone keypad is more difficult than typing in English, Meeker said. Baidu Chief Scientist Andrew Ng expects at least half of searches will be through images or speech by 2020.
A survey by MindMeld, a provider of intelligent conversational voice interfaces, found that people find voice apps most useful in situations when their hands or vision are occupied. Respondents also say it’s faster to speak a question or command than to type it.
The transition from keyboards to microphones for computer input, however, is still in its early innings, Meeker said.
The next step for voice-based digital assistants is for companies to open up their application program interfaces to third parties, she said. Amazon has already done that with Alexa and its Echo smart speakers. Google is taking similar action.
Apple is rumored to be developing a rival product to the Amazon Echo and plans to announce a software development kit to open up the device to third-party developers at its Worldwide Developers Conference June 13-17 in San Francisco.
In a research report Wednesday, RBC Capital Markets analyst Amit Daryanani said he expects Siri to be center stage at the company’s annual conference. He predicts Apple will showcase a Siri SDK for third-party developers to expand use cases for Siri and lay the groundwork for a Wi-Fi-enabled personal assistant device like Amazon Echo.
The voice-first user interface has gone mainstream
A quantitative study of Amazon’s Echo, Apple’s Siri and Google’s OK Google shows where — and how — they're being used by consumers.
BY BEN BAJARIN JUN 7, 2016, 12:00P
Search Google for full article.
Going forward
I walked away from this study with confidence that the voice-user interface has gone mainstream. What’s more, mainstream consumers seem to recognize its value and convenience. Consider these statements from consumers:
It does not always work, but when it does it is very useful: 55 percent strongly agree
I would use my devices voice capabilities more if I could speak to it more naturally: 43 percent strongly agree
If it worked more often, I would use my device's voice assistants more: 48 percent strongly agree
I want my device’s voice interface to integrate better with more devices and apps that I use regularly: 66 percent strongly agree
I am not comfortable speaking to my technology: 41 percent strongly disagree
It is encouraging, from a sentiment perspective, that voice looks to be a natural extension of our keyboard/mouse/touch-based input and output methods. Consumers seem to recognize its value, and want it to work in more ways. I’ve long said that the true test of a great feature very early in its life cycle is when it combines both delight and frustration. Once you use it, you’re hooked, but you want it to be great all the time, because you can see the potential. This is why we snuck this question into the sentiment segment to see if consumers agreed: 47 percent strongly agree and 38 percent somewhat agree that when their voice assistant works, it's great, and when it doesn’t, they get irritated.
The battle for the voice-based assistant is on. This is another area where the one with the biggest ecosystem built around their voice UI/voice OS has the best shot of being "hired" by the masses.
I see people generating there own shorthand with Siri in a short amount of time to point that Siri can tell the person speaking isn't the authorized user.
When the touch screen user interface went mainstream why did phones still have hardware buttons for some functions or speakers for audio feedback? Removing the screen isn't something that will be required once voice-user interface goes mainstream. Although having said that devices like Amazon Echo show that it is getting to the point were Voice only interfaces are becoming a reality. Being able to ask your phone to open a specific app or show you photos from Christmas last year would be very pointless though if your phone no longer had a screen.
I think to say it's mainstream then there should be a good or even a few good examples around of personal devices designed from the ground up as personnel voice devices.
I agree that they shouldn't be saying voice interface is mainstream. Like you said the Echo isn't really a personal device, nor is it a mass market device. I'm just not sure we will get to a point anytime soon where we will have a personal voice that has a voice interface as main method of interacting with the device and no screen. I think it's more likely the voice interface will be in addition to the screen but that the voice interface will be far more capable than what we are seeing today. Allowing you to do much more with your device without needing to look at the screen.
Of course Google is way ahead in context-aware search, just like Apple is miles ahead of everyone in hardware, and infinitely ahead of everyone in good taste. And of course Apple knows that Siri's been leap-frogged, and is coldly planning to leap-frog right back.
I wouldn't go near that group of tea-baggers, Arment, Siracusa, Thompson, and sometimes even Gruber, when it comes to their "concerned" nagging of Apple on services and software. One of these days, they're going to cause some C-level executive to say to hell with these whiners, I'm going back to England or wherever.
Some commands could be verified before executing and have an undo for ones that could go wrong. It would make it easy to do scripted tasks without learning a scripting language.
On the iPhone, I don't think people want to be talking to their phones in public. It's ok in the car or home but people are going to be out most of the time so adding texting ability with silent replies would help and again, it can do more complex actions than doing it manually like typing 'mark emails read' without even opening Mail.
I don't think AI or Siri is an important feature for computing products though. It's just a useful addition.
Why does your life revolve around others' opinions?
Nope.
The camera is great already, and getting better each new model. Those who actually need telephoto can buy add-ons.
Though AI may ultimately be a dead end as you say, we've only just started with it, and it also can get incrementally better for many years to come.