Apple's Steve Jobs wasn't a fan of the name 'Siri'

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Comments

  • Reply 41 of 49
    coolfactorcoolfactor Posts: 2,243member
    Should've been Newton.
  • Reply 42 of 49
    coolfactorcoolfactor Posts: 2,243member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by charlituna View Post


    no joke.



    The man is dead. What he liked, didn't like etc is beside the point. Time to move on.



    The only thing more annoying than these stories are folks jumping on "Steve would never have approved this" for anything that releases after his death that they don't like. Everything we see for the next 5 years is stuff that was likely in the works before he went on medical leave much less died so in fact, yes he likely did approve it.



    Steve created Apple. His influence on the company will last for generations. Get over it.
  • Reply 43 of 49
    hittrj01hittrj01 Posts: 753member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by coolfactor View Post


    Steve created Apple. His influence on the company will last for generations. Get over it.



    I think that's the exact point he was trying to make. Steve's influence WILL live for generations, that's why stories of "Steve didn't like this, Steve didn't like that" are completely stupid. Apple is not going to change overnight just because Steve is not there, and they aren't going to stop moving forward because he isn't there either. Apple as a company is Steve's greatest achievement, and he made sure it was going to last.
  • Reply 44 of 49
    flaneurflaneur Posts: 4,526member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jlandd View Post


    Like my wife, on both counts (US regional accents die hard)





    All three counts! : )



    So our US Siri picked up that "whi-yul" from where exactly? I like it. Hope you do too.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by rbryanh View Post


    The Hagiography of Jobs has gone beyond tedious. "Steve Jobs didn't like blue socks." "Steve Jobs adored marmalade." "Steve Jobs though hot tubs were tacky."



    There is no journalism in the 21st century, is there? Just the endless churn of celebrity trivia.



    But then you think everything is tedious, for understandable reasons, as I've read between your lines.



    The way to think of all news about Apple, actually my way and a few others here and around the web, is that we've been fortunate to watch the ascendency of a more ethically driven corporation than has ever existed in the past. I'm counting aesthetics as part of ethics. It is the key to their success, and it may last for a long time. We don't know because it's unprecedented in history.



    It's what makes the Apple story so interesting to people like Gruber, Benjamin, and their pals, all of whom get this. It's the only game in town.



    You are thinking categorically again: Apple is a big corporation and is therefore bad. Endless interest in Steve Jobs's fine points of management are hagiography. Not so. We get insight into how the greatest transformation in American/world business since Ford was done, and it's a lot more fun to watch because Jobs was the polar opposite of Ford



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by coolfactor View Post


    Steve created Apple. His influence on the company will last for generations. Get over it.



    Agreed. Look how this little story of internal deliberation gives us a wider appreciation of how Siri, conductress to victory, made it through.
  • Reply 45 of 49
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by PhilBoogie View Post


    Or, more importantly, he didn't want apps on the iPhone. From the biography:



    Board member Art Levinson was among those pushing to allow iPhone apps. ?I called him a half dozen times to lobby for the potential of the apps,? he recalled. If Apple didn?t allow them, indeed encourage them, another smartphone maker would, giving itself a competitive advantage. Apple?s marketing chief Phil Schiller agreed. ?I couldn?t imagine that we would create something as powerful as the iPhone and not empower developers to make lots of apps,? he recalled. ?I knew customers would love them.? From the outside, the venture capitalist John Doerr argued that permitting apps would spawn a profusion of new entrepreneurs who would create new services.

    Jobs at first quashed the discussion, partly because he felt his team did not have*the bandwidth to figure out all of the complexities that would be involved in policing third-party app developers. He wanted focus. ?So he didn?t want to talk about it,? said Schiller. But as soon as the iPhone was launched, he was willing to hear the debate. ?Every time the conversation happened, Steve seemed a little more open,? said Levinson. There were freewheeling discussions at four board meetings.

    Jobs soon figured out that there was a way to have the best of both worlds. He would permit outsiders to write apps, but they would have to meet strict standards, be tested and approved by Apple, and be sold only through the iTunes Store. It was a way to reap the advantage of empowering thousands of software developers while retaining enough control to protect the integrity of the iPhone and the simplicity of the customer experience. ?It was an absolutely magical solution that hit the sweet spot,? said Levinson. ?It gave us the benefits of openness while retaining end-to-end control



    It sounds as if the Apple board of directors were/are much more intelligent and involved than I expected. All except that one guy from Google that was always busy taking notes. HP would be well served with such a board.
  • Reply 46 of 49
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by PhilBoogie View Post


    Or, more importantly, he didn't want apps on the iPhone. From the biography:



    Board member Art Levinson was among those pushing to allow iPhone apps. ?I called him a half dozen times to lobby for the potential of the apps,? he recalled. If Apple didn?t allow them, indeed encourage them, another smartphone maker would, giving itself a competitive advantage. Apple?s marketing chief Phil Schiller agreed. ?I couldn?t imagine that we would create something as powerful as the iPhone and not empower developers to make lots of apps,? he recalled. ?I knew customers would love them.? From the outside, the venture capitalist John Doerr argued that permitting apps would spawn a profusion of new entrepreneurs who would create new services.

    Jobs at first quashed the discussion, partly because he felt his team did not have*the bandwidth to figure out all of the complexities that would be involved in policing third-party app developers. He wanted focus. ?So he didn?t want to talk about it,? said Schiller. But as soon as the iPhone was launched, he was willing to hear the debate. ?Every time the conversation happened, Steve seemed a little more open,? said Levinson. There were freewheeling discussions at four board meetings.

    Jobs soon figured out that there was a way to have the best of both worlds. He would permit outsiders to write apps, but they would have to meet strict standards, be tested and approved by Apple, and be sold only through the iTunes Store. It was a way to reap the advantage of empowering thousands of software developers while retaining enough control to protect the integrity of the iPhone and the simplicity of the customer experience. ?It was an absolutely magical solution that hit the sweet spot,? said Levinson. ?It gave us the benefits of openness while retaining end-to-end control



    Based on when the SDK was first released I figured that 3rd-party iPhone OS apps were designed from the start, once the initial focus on the device was solidified.



    It's interesting that we put so much emphasis on Steve Jobs for making all these important decisions but he really was about more simplicity and controlled structure. I can certainly understand that perspective. I'm glad that he was wise enough to know when to listen to others. There has been never a more powerful platform in the world and a large part of that is because of 3rd-party developers.





    PS: One could argue that Jobs being against it at first looks to have been beneficial for the inclusion of the App Store. If he had been fine with it from the start there would have been less of a struggle which could have led to a less thought out, archaic model that has succeeded in the past, but not at the level of the App Store. it might be more akin to Google Play had they not felt a need to satisfy the need for security, simplicity and reliability from the start.
  • Reply 47 of 49
    ouraganouragan Posts: 437member
    Quote:

    Apple co-founder Steve Jobs didn't particularly like the name "Siri" when he acquired the company behind the personal assistant software, but he failed to come up with what he thought was a better option.





    Just call it "Aladdin" or "Genie" in a reference to the 1960's TV series Jinny who would obey her master.









    And P.S.: If SIRI by any name is good for the iPhone, extend it to other Apple designed devices such as iPads, iPod Touch, and Macs ASAP.
  • Reply 48 of 49
    philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ouragan View Post


    Just call it "Aladdin" or "Genie" in a reference to the 1960's TV series Jinny who would obey her master



    Reminds me of Prince's response when Warner Bros asked him while shooting the movie Purple Rain why he sung 'Darling Nikki'. "What do U want me 2 sing, 'Darling Apollonia'?"
  • Reply 49 of 49
    lilgto64lilgto64 Posts: 1,147member
    I heard that Steve wanted to call it SkyNet...
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