Former Apple employee claims Steve Jobs would have 'lost his mind' over Siri

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  • Reply 41 of 189


    He would have lost his mind over the complete hash they have made of address book and ical. The fact that Apple seems to have lost its way over the very thing that made it successful - "ease of use and integration". Photosharing was one of the few successful things on MobileMe as well as syncing of passwords and keychains across macs has now forced hundreds of thousands of people to seek alternatives outside the apps eco system. I never thought I would need to use an alternative calendar and address book and now I am. Not boding well for the future I am afraid.....

  • Reply 42 of 189

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Cpsro View Post


    Was said "former Apple employee" working on the MobileMe team?



     


    Or maybe named Rubenstein...


     


     


     


    I wouldn't say that Siri is an embarrassment.  Or it shouldn't be, anyway.  It will only get better with time, and this open public beta is a huge part of that.


     


    Apple should probably focus on managing expectations.

  • Reply 43 of 189


    Everyone has this all wrong. The technology is not about Siri improving and becoming better, it is about Siri training humans to speak better. If Siri does not understand you correctly, then you are still needing to evolve.

  • Reply 44 of 189
    isheldonisheldon Posts: 570member
    Forget Siri's lack of understanding,
    She fails miserably on a NYC street
  • Reply 45 of 189
    isheldonisheldon Posts: 570member
    Siri is perfect for those suffering from Tourette syndrome.
    I can't wait to hear my neighbors yelling at their new Apple TVs. .
  • Reply 46 of 189
    Siri works very well for me 95% of the time. The more you use it the better it is. There are a few tricks to getting it to work better. Scrolling up and correcting what it heard you say a few times seems to go a long way in getting it to understand your particular dialect.

    Siri is at its worst in noisy environments or in the car over Bluetooth with lots of road noise. That being said i still send very accurate texts and make reminders in the car all the time.
  • Reply 47 of 189
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by iSheldon View Post



    Forget Siri's lack of understanding,

    She fails miserably on a NYC street


     


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    That is because Siri only works with verbal communication.

  • Reply 48 of 189

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by maccherry View Post


    I could careless about SERI. I would like to now why the hell I couldn't use my new iPad via he wall adapter when the batter has drained.


    I took it back to the Apple store for a full refund on Lincoln Road on Miami Beach last month and the manager was more than willing to refund my credit card.


    Apparently  this is a very hush, hush snafu on Apple's part.



    Sounds like a monumental conspiracy.

  • Reply 49 of 189
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Andy Stewart View Post



    Siri works very well for me 95% of the time. The more you use it the better it is. There are a few tricks to getting it to work better. Scrolling up and correcting what it heard you say a few times seems to go a long way in getting it to understand your particular dialect.


    Which is a bit scary since in order to learn your speech, all of your Siri usage is stored on Apple's servers as a resource.

  • Reply 50 of 189


    I question Apple's quality these days. Siri worked incredibly well when I first used it. I use to use it in traffic without any problem...now I worry about it being a distraction because it is so much less reliable.


     


    And, then there's iCloud...for something that is just suppose to work, I'd like to know why my bookmarks come and go over the last week and why intermittently mail can't access Apple's servers. Then there's iTunes in the cloud...it worked great in the beginning but about a month ago I made some changes with the playlists. Now I don't ever know until it's too late whether the playlists are going to be on the devices they should be. They'll just disappear.


     


    Something that just works...yeah, I would like that...it's not here though.

  • Reply 51 of 189
    isheldonisheldon Posts: 570member
    mstone wrote: »
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    <p style="padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.571em;margin-left:0px;">That is because Siri only works with verbal communication.</p>

    Except that it doesn't.
  • Reply 52 of 189
    mstone wrote: »
    Which is a bit scary since in order to learn your speech, all of your Siri usage is stored on Apple's servers as a resource.

    Not a conspiracy theorist so I'm okay with it since it makes my life way easier.
  • Reply 53 of 189
    welshdogwelshdog Posts: 1,881member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by huntercr View Post


     


    Now, I do think Apple was foolish for allowing those Ads to portray a level of intelligence that just isn't there.


    I am very surprised they haven't been sued over it.



    This is where Apple should be careful.  Never give the marketing department too much power or sway over a product.  This is exactly what happened to GM - the marketing department was dictating what cars would be made and even how they would be designed.  That's we they ended up with nothing but overpowered SUVs and pickups that inevitably became less popular and thus destroyed revenue.


     


    Tim: keep the marketing department on a short lead.  Less BS in Apple ads would be appreciated by all.

  • Reply 54 of 189
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by iSheldon View Post





    Except that it doesn't.


     


    User: "How bout' dem Yankees?"  


    Siri: "Fugetaboutit!"

  • Reply 55 of 189
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    Siri works very well for me 95% of the time. The more you use it the better it is. There are a few tricks to getting it to work better. Scrolling up and correcting what it heard you say a few times seems to go a long way in getting it to understand your particular dialect.
    Siri is at its worst in noisy environments or in the car over Bluetooth with lots of road noise. That being said i still send very accurate texts and make reminders in the car all the time.

    I agree. It's not perfect, but it would be unreasonable to expect it to be. Can you fool it? Sure. Are there questions it won't answer? Yep. Are there people who have trouble getting Siri to understand them?Absolutely.

    But that doesn't mean that the technology is an embarrassment or should never have been released. It's far better than anything else out there - by a mile. Sometimes being on the cutting edge creates difficulties.

    Until someone has something else that works better, no one has any room to complain. If you want to sample really bad voice recognition, you should see my car's navigation system. I spent weeks trying to get it to do ANYTHING properly and gave up.

    If you don't like the way it works, take your phone back for a refund and stop whining.
  • Reply 56 of 189
    zoetmbzoetmb Posts: 2,641member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Hyram Gestan View Post


    Siri is still in Beta.    Given that it is just beta software, it works very well.  Nobody should expect that beta software will be 100%



    If it's still in Beta, then it shouldn't be the primary marketing thrust of the iPhone.    So saying it's "beta" is just an excuse, especially when you haven't announced when it's expected to come out of Beta.   I think it's reasonable to expect that at the very least, Siri will accomplish what Apple demonstrates it's doing in the spots (aside from the "compressed time" disclaimer).      If it doesn't, I'm surprised the FTC hasn't gotten involved.    The FTC used to send inspectors to film shoots of detergent ads to make sure they weren't "cheating" when demonstrating how a detergent cleaned clothes.   

  • Reply 57 of 189
    gazoobeegazoobee Posts: 3,754member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by tikiman View Post


    I guess there's little point in mentioning that 95% of the time Siri works just fine for me, but I don't ask it to find "funky" names of locations, songs, etc. that I know it would be hard to understand. I must be in the minority. 



     


    I'm a big Apple supporter and don't support those criticising Siri because, well ... it's a beta.  


     


    On the other hand, my experience is the reverse of yours.  Siri barely works at all for me.  Maybe 2% of the time (if I'm generous).  


     


    Some obvious problems and reasons for this are:


     


    - For anything other than Wolfram-Alph searches, it doesn't work *anywhere* outside the USA (I'm in Canada, that exotic far away country ten feet to the north).  


    - For everything else, it just asks to look it up on the web (just using Google search is much faster for this)


     


    So if you want to know how many inches in a mile or how high the moon is, your in luck.  Otherwise not at all.  For stuff like adding appointments and dialling numbers, it only understands me roughly 10% of the time so of course I never use it for that because it's so unreliable.  


     


    The dictation part of Siri completely fails for me, every time, under all circumstances, in quiet and noisy places. I'm almost certain that this (and the low return on making appointments) is because of a stupid language preferences situation that the US engineers at Apple aren't even aware of.  Because dictation fails literally 100% of the time (it doesn't even come close), I have to assume that it's because I have English language set as my preference instead of American.  It's the only thing that makes sense to me.  


     


    All of these are dumb-ass beta problems though.  I just hope that we don't have to wait more than a year after it's debut to actually get  working copy of the product simply because we don't live in California.  

  • Reply 58 of 189
    isheldonisheldon Posts: 570member
    mstone wrote: »
    User: "How bout' dem Yankees?"  
    Siri: "Fugetaboutit!"

    More like-

    User: "I am like soo totally Sirious."

    Siri: "Yes you are seriously an idiot."
  • Reply 59 of 189
    msimpsonmsimpson Posts: 452member


    I find it funny that a product that Apple is supposed to be so disappointed in, is the main feature of the TV ads they are running now with stars like Samuel L Jackson, etc.  If Siri was such a big problem, why create more attention to it?


     


    I don't use Siri as much as I could.  Part of it is just forgetting what Siri can do, and part of it is that my normal daily workflow is not something which has me needing to walk around asking it questions.  As I have used Siri more I have learned how to better ask it questions that it will understand and provide useful info to.  And how to speak more clearly when I need to.  Siri even works great over my hands-free in the car.


     


    Also the voice recognition is great for note-taking and composing text messages.


     


    The only problem I have with Siri is that whenever I ask her "Who took my french fries?",  the only answer I get is "It wasn't Tim Cook!"

  • Reply 60 of 189
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    Any article I see that quotes someone saying "Steve Jobs would.." I call BS on. Steve was not some god who never did anything wrong or never had a bad idea. Lets not forget Steve was initially opposed to putting iTunes on Windows. He was opposed to 3rd party apps on iPhone. iPhone antenna issue happened on his watch so did MobileMe.

    As far as Siri goes its hit or miss for me. And it's not something I use all the time. Nice to have but if it was gone tomorrow i don't know if I'd miss it that much. Considering it's beta software I'm a bit surprised Apple is focusing so much advertising on it.
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