Success of next-generation iPhone could rest with Siri, survey says
A fresh survey published ahead of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference suggests updates to Siri and the unlocking of the digital assistant's software development kit could be a key factor in future iPhone adoption, a topic of keen interest coming off Apple's first ever handset sales contraction.
About 42 percent of iPhone owners in Fluent's pre-WWDC survey indicated they would be "somewhat more likely" to purchase the next iPhone if the Siri voice recognizing assistant is vastly improved. Apple is expected to announce Siri innovations, highlighted by the first Siri SDK release, at its developer conference next week.
Siri alone is unlikely to drum up iPhone sales above cooling expectations, however. The survey found only about 24 percent of iPhone users are "much more likely" to buy the next iPhone.
"Overall, Apple needs to recapture that wow factor, and could potentially do so with more aggressive moves into the automotive and television markets," Jordan Cohen, CMO for Fluent told AppleInsider.
Even if excitement surrounding Siri's SDK doesn't reach Amazon Echo and Alexa-level buzz, Apple can still count on about 87 percent of iPhone users staying loyal to the brand. That's the percentage of survey respondents that indicated that they plan on buying iPhones for their next upgrade, a figure approximately 13 percent higher than Android's reported retention rates.
In the face of sagging global smartphone sales and meatier options from a fleshed out mid-tier market, consumers are sticking with Apple because they simply want premium products in their pockets and purses. About 65 percent of iPhone users said they feel iPhone is worth the comparatively high cost, according to the survey.
While Fluent discovered high consumer confidence in Apple products, the firm also confirmed that there are low expectations among iPhone users for this year's release.
"Many consumers have been trained not to expect major improvements in Apple's new releases," Cohen said. "Our research indicates low expectations for the new iPhone, iPad and Mac, with nearly half of consumers expecting little to no change in the next generation of products."
Apple is expected to announce major Siri developments alongside a host of iOS, Mac, tvOS and watchOS improvements at next week's WWDC 2016. AppleInsider will be reporting live from the five-day event scheduled to kick off with a keynote on Monday, June 13 at 10 a.m. Pacific.
About 42 percent of iPhone owners in Fluent's pre-WWDC survey indicated they would be "somewhat more likely" to purchase the next iPhone if the Siri voice recognizing assistant is vastly improved. Apple is expected to announce Siri innovations, highlighted by the first Siri SDK release, at its developer conference next week.
Siri alone is unlikely to drum up iPhone sales above cooling expectations, however. The survey found only about 24 percent of iPhone users are "much more likely" to buy the next iPhone.
"Overall, Apple needs to recapture that wow factor, and could potentially do so with more aggressive moves into the automotive and television markets," Jordan Cohen, CMO for Fluent told AppleInsider.
Even if excitement surrounding Siri's SDK doesn't reach Amazon Echo and Alexa-level buzz, Apple can still count on about 87 percent of iPhone users staying loyal to the brand. That's the percentage of survey respondents that indicated that they plan on buying iPhones for their next upgrade, a figure approximately 13 percent higher than Android's reported retention rates.
In the face of sagging global smartphone sales and meatier options from a fleshed out mid-tier market, consumers are sticking with Apple because they simply want premium products in their pockets and purses. About 65 percent of iPhone users said they feel iPhone is worth the comparatively high cost, according to the survey.
While Fluent discovered high consumer confidence in Apple products, the firm also confirmed that there are low expectations among iPhone users for this year's release.
"Many consumers have been trained not to expect major improvements in Apple's new releases," Cohen said. "Our research indicates low expectations for the new iPhone, iPad and Mac, with nearly half of consumers expecting little to no change in the next generation of products."
Apple is expected to announce major Siri developments alongside a host of iOS, Mac, tvOS and watchOS improvements at next week's WWDC 2016. AppleInsider will be reporting live from the five-day event scheduled to kick off with a keynote on Monday, June 13 at 10 a.m. Pacific.
Comments
Now they tell us it's so important that the success of the iPhone depends on Siri?
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."
neither are going to happen.
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.
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"
Before Apple bought the company, VocalIQ tested its product against Siri, Google Now, and Cortana, and the results were impressive. Users asked each AI questions using normal language, not the robotic commands you’re used to using with digital assistants. Those commands can be long and complicated, and the other assistants had trouble catching everything.
How VocalIQ works
After writing the program, VocalIQ hired contractors through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to feed the program queries normal humans would ask and help it learn how people talk. These contractors would ask VocalIQ questions from a list of prompts to train the system. After about 3,000 dialogues, VocalIQ already started to get much more accurate. Once the process was finished, VocalIQ had recorded about 10,000 dialogues from Mechanical Turk contractors.
To put that in context, Siri brings in 1 billion queries per week from users to help it get better. But VocalIQ was able to learn with just a few thousand queries and still beat Siri.
VocalIQ may sound similar to Hound, a new digital assistant app that launched on iPhone and Android recently, but Hound only works one session at a time. VocalIQ remembers your context forever, just like a human can. That’s a massive breakthrough.
Because VocalIQ understands context so well, it essentially eliminates the need to look at a screen for confirmation that it’s doing what you want it to do. That’s useful on the phone, but could be even better for other ambitious projects like the car or smart speaker system .
97% of people are too embarrassed to use Siri in public.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/technology/people-too-embarrassed-to-talk-to-siri-in-public-study-finds/article/467147