The Verge did a very on point and sadly pretty accurate story on Siri (http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/12/13251068/walt-mossberg-apple-siri-is-dumb). If they can't get something like Siri working like the competition can with their products, Apple really needs to up their game. Since the iPad, the only thing they have come up with is the Apple Watch which while nice is not yet the game changer that the iPod, iPhone and iPad have been. Yes, I know a lot of dislikes are coming but take the time to read the article. Mossberg is hardly an Apple hater and Apple has already made changes to provide better response to his questions which means they are at least taking the criticisms seriously.
I would be interested to know what it is that you expect of Siri since my own personal experience is quite the opposite. I routinely use Siri to have her send messages for me, set reminders and timers, ask for directions or to have her find me points of interest.
Just last week I was out with friends and simply told Siri: "find me food" since we were all looking for a place to eat. Siri understood and immediately gave me a list of all of the restaurants in my vicinity. At the same time one of my friends tried doing the same with their Galaxy device but it couldn't even parse what he was saying.
I see a lot of people talking about how Siri is so terrible but I really don't see it, what is so terrible about Siri compared to it's competitors? (Or in general)
Was your friend using Google Now or some Samsung version? Seems odd that it wouldn't pick up on that phrase.
I am unsure what exact version my friend was using. It is my assumption that it was some Samsung version as the phrase that he used was: "Galaxy, find me some restaurants".
On a side note: I am not trying to start an A is better than B argument. In my experiences I have seen assistants fail and succeed in similar ways regardless of who manufactured them, I genuinely wonder where the idea that Siri is supposedly lightyears behind the competition is coming from since I do not see the assistants behaving all that differently.
The only difference I have seen so far is that Google Now uses predictive stuff when it comes to commuting which I assume is because the massive amounts of datamining Google does in order to make that happen.
This reminds me of Balmer talking about the iPhone for some reason. I don't see the connection as they have completely different applications.
Apple would be wise to facilitate a platform for both.
AR done right is a pure superset of VR. VR is somewhat limited IMO unless the VR fully maps the environment in real time and superimpose the VR view into the mapped real view.
Not really.
No one wants to wear a goofy VR headset to carry the VR displays. There is no future where people wear headmounted displays a majority of the time. AR when it's contextually useful? Yes. You absolutely separate the two and pay attention to the one with broader applications.
If AR is done right, it can do anything VR can. It's harder the other war around.
I think it's weird that Cook keeps talking about this. Of all the future product directions to talk about, why this one?
And if he can talk about this, why can't he give us some guidance on where the Mac is going?
He's either laying ground for an upcoming product announcement or he's trying to throw off the competition. To be fair, he doesn't seem to be a big fan of throwing out disinformation like Steve Jobs was.
This reminds me of Balmer talking about the iPhone for some reason. I don't see the connection as they have completely different applications.
Apple would be wise to facilitate a platform for both.
AR done right is a pure superset of VR. VR is somewhat limited IMO unless the VR fully maps the environment in real time and superimpose the VR view into the mapped real view.
Not really.
No one wants to wear a goofy VR headset to carry the VR displays. There is no future where people wear headmounted displays a majority of the time. AR when it's contextually useful? Yes. You absolutely separate the two and pay attention to the one with broader applications.
If AR is done right, it can do anything VR can. It's harder the other war around.
I would not recommend playing Grand Theft Auto in AR!
Cook is saying this because the competition is hyping VR as the next big thing. AR in a wearable form factor is a tough problem to solve. One of the biggest issues in creating AR glasses is focusing on an image so close to the eye. This makes me wonder if he is really talking about AR windshields.
I've wondered if placing an iPhone's two cameras wider apart -- left edge, right edge -- would closely approximate human eye separation and thus allow capture of two video streams that could roll into a composite 3D video (or even hologram!).
The Verge did a very on point and sadly pretty accurate story on Siri (http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/12/13251068/walt-mossberg-apple-siri-is-dumb). If they can't get something like Siri working like the competition can with their products, Apple really needs to up their game. Since the iPad, the only thing they have come up with is the Apple Watch which while nice is not yet the game changer that the iPod, iPhone and iPad have been. Yes, I know a lot of dislikes are coming but take the time to read the article. Mossberg is hardly an Apple hater and Apple has already made changes to provide better response to his questions which means they are at least taking the criticisms seriously.
I would be interested to know what it is that you expect of Siri since my own personal experience is quite the opposite. I routinely use Siri to have her send messages for me, set reminders and timers, ask for directions or to have her find me points of interest.
Just last week I was out with friends and simply told Siri: "find me food" since we were all looking for a place to eat. Siri understood and immediately gave me a list of all of the restaurants in my vicinity. At the same time one of my friends tried doing the same with their Galaxy device but it couldn't even parse what he was saying.
I see a lot of people talking about how Siri is so terrible but I really don't see it, what is so terrible about Siri compared to it's competitors? (Or in general)
I have been wondering how Walt gathered his test datta to achieve the results he wrote about? We know which results he chose to keep to write his blistering article about Siri. Which results did he choose to throw away due to them not fitting his narrative? As I wrote above, rephrasing the questions changed the outcomes of the tests. Walt knows he wields a lot of power, but he should be called out frequently to be 100% transparent about what he is writing.
One of the keys to quality AR that doesn't make you nauseous is depth perception. Did you notice that the two cameras on Apple's newest flagship, iPhone 7 plus, gives it depth perception, aka "portrait mode"? And did you notice Apple's heavy focus for many years on improving the graphics processing capabilities of the chips they use.
Apple, as so often in the past, appears to be incrementally readying its product line to suddenly hit us with cool new functionality, in this case AR. Let's see what Apple has up its sleeve the day they roll out an iPhone in the mid-range price category that has the depth perception and processing power of today's iPhone 7 plus. Maybe it will take one more iteration to get that depth perception accurate enough for everyday AR, but Apple's obviously working hard on the building blocks they will need to rollout "Apple quality" AR.
You could be on to something here. Apple is close to having all of its devices 64-bit. With support for the iPhone 4 being discontinued, all of Apple's are officially Siri-capable, which works nicely with AirPods.
It's a false dichotomy. VR will have its place for seeing what is not in front of you - gaming, movies, watching what others see, e.g. monitoring what a drone sees. AR is for viewing what's in front of you with additional information. There can be overlap - e.g. there's potential for gaming with both, potential for communication with both but mostly one if for getting lost in another world, the other is being present in the current one. AR probably has more potential but I suspect it'll move well beyond the phone, glasses, contacts - into windscreens, windows, mirrors, i guess longer term, some form of holograms and in devices we don't currently have
100% agree. AR will be very useful, often boring but functional, and everywhere. VR will be exciting, specialized, and far more difficult to get right. Both technologies are in their infancy, but they ultimately serve two very different purposes. We'll see a lot of consumer level AR implementations over the coming years. VR too, but they will be niche and won't remotely feel like reality, more like a video game. It will be decades before VR effectively simulates reality. VR is sexy. AR is where the money lies.
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if Apple creates a VR or AR device it sure won't be tethered to your head by an iPhone.
AR in a wearable form factor is a tough problem to solve.
One of the biggest issues in creating AR glasses is focusing on an image so close to the eye.
This makes me wonder if he is really talking about AR windshields.
100% agree. AR will be very useful, often boring but functional, and everywhere. VR will be exciting, specialized, and far more difficult to get right. Both technologies are in their infancy, but they ultimately serve two very different purposes. We'll see a lot of consumer level AR implementations over the coming years. VR too, but they will be niche and won't remotely feel like reality, more like a video game. It will be decades before VR effectively simulates reality. VR is sexy. AR is where the money lies.