Apple SVPs Schiller and Federighi discuss Siri, Messages and more in Q&A session
Apple executives Phil Schiller and Craig Federighi on Tuesday took part in a casual interview to discuss the many software and services enhancements revealed at this week's Worldwide Developers Conference.
At a live taping of John Gruber's Daring Fireball podcast "The Talk Show," marketing chief Schiller said this year's WWDC announcements illustrate Apple's focus on delivering a solid foundation for developers. Through app extensions, APIs and SDKs, Apple offers a lattice onto which developers can build.
Siri is a good example of the company's approach. During yesterday's keynote SVP of Software Engineering Federighi announced a third-party Siri SDK, opening the door to powerful voice recognition and artificial intelligence technologies.
There are a few caveats, however. Most notably, integration will be restricted to a handful of app categories well within Siri's current capabilities, like messaging, payments, ride booking, photo search and workouts.
Federighi said the decision to limit access follows Apple's mantra of offering customers only the best user experience. Additional app categories will of course be added as the program progresses and Siri gains an understanding of new domains, he said.
In one of the more interesting tidbits to come out of Tuesday's interview, Federighi explained first-party app "deletion" in iOS 10 is a misnomer. When the mobile operating system debuts this fall users will be able to remove unwanted or rarely used Apple apps from their home screens and delete associated data, but the software binaries technically remain a part of iOS. Thus, it might be more accurate to say users will be able to hide apps in iOS 10.
Considering the amount of time Apple spent detailing new Messages enhancements during Monday's keynote it perhaps comes as no surprise that the topic came up in Tuesday's Q&A. The company knows iPhone users spend the most time in Messages, which is why it was given the most onstage time, the executives said. Federighi joked that developers were more excited about emojis additions than the new Apple File System. Third-party app integration, support for transactions, all-new effects and support for transactions are among the many notable features coming to Messages in iOS 10.
Schiller and Federighi's wide roving interview also covered concerns about the Mac App Store, sentiment regarding Apple's place in the artificial intelligence arms race, app subscriptions and differential privacy, among other topics.
The show was streamed live and a replay should be available for download on Gruber's site soon.
At a live taping of John Gruber's Daring Fireball podcast "The Talk Show," marketing chief Schiller said this year's WWDC announcements illustrate Apple's focus on delivering a solid foundation for developers. Through app extensions, APIs and SDKs, Apple offers a lattice onto which developers can build.
Siri is a good example of the company's approach. During yesterday's keynote SVP of Software Engineering Federighi announced a third-party Siri SDK, opening the door to powerful voice recognition and artificial intelligence technologies.
There are a few caveats, however. Most notably, integration will be restricted to a handful of app categories well within Siri's current capabilities, like messaging, payments, ride booking, photo search and workouts.
Federighi said the decision to limit access follows Apple's mantra of offering customers only the best user experience. Additional app categories will of course be added as the program progresses and Siri gains an understanding of new domains, he said.
In one of the more interesting tidbits to come out of Tuesday's interview, Federighi explained first-party app "deletion" in iOS 10 is a misnomer. When the mobile operating system debuts this fall users will be able to remove unwanted or rarely used Apple apps from their home screens and delete associated data, but the software binaries technically remain a part of iOS. Thus, it might be more accurate to say users will be able to hide apps in iOS 10.
Considering the amount of time Apple spent detailing new Messages enhancements during Monday's keynote it perhaps comes as no surprise that the topic came up in Tuesday's Q&A. The company knows iPhone users spend the most time in Messages, which is why it was given the most onstage time, the executives said. Federighi joked that developers were more excited about emojis additions than the new Apple File System. Third-party app integration, support for transactions, all-new effects and support for transactions are among the many notable features coming to Messages in iOS 10.
Schiller and Federighi's wide roving interview also covered concerns about the Mac App Store, sentiment regarding Apple's place in the artificial intelligence arms race, app subscriptions and differential privacy, among other topics.
The show was streamed live and a replay should be available for download on Gruber's site soon.
Comments
As to restricting Siri to certain App categories right now, this is just typical Apple taking things slow. They did the exact same thing with multitasking by initially opening it up to more common tasks before making it available to all Apps. They'll do the same with Siri.
And this is why I think Tim and Luca's whole pivot to services on the earnings calls is a bunch of BS. Next to nothing announced yesterday creates new monetized services. The only thing Apple could make money off of is if, say, developers charge for iMessage stickers and Apple gets its 30% cut. Nothing else they announced had any sort of monetization component (Pay is still just about secure authentication not replacing PayPal).
Farad Manjoo had a very good piece in the New York Times on this very issue, and I thought he was spot on: the strategy is still too Apple-device centered for it to be truly services-focused. If that's the strategy Apple has (implicitly) chosen, and that's fine; but it's vacuous to put a spin on it like "we have a services strategy".
News: In iOS 9 I was eager to use it, but there was nothing compelling about it, and the curation just wasn't good. I'm glad they improved it and added subscriptions in iOS 10, and I plan to get some subscriptions and give it another go this year.
Music: While I'm excited about and very eagerly awaiting the iOS 10 version, it seems like we should be getting more than a simplified, streamlined version of what we got last year. There's no expansion of Beats stations, no obvious push into Android as there should be, no addition of content as suggested by Apple's Dubset Media partnership, ..., and the biggest omission of all, lack of social. It's so incongruous with what we know about music, and with what Apple's music presentation was all about.. individual identity and expression (as was excellently conveyed in Bozoma Saint John's presentation). We live in a social-connected world now (despite what many AI members think), and Apple Music lacking a social aspect, a mechanism for self-expression, is inherently and significantly limiting. And no, messaging and emailing links to songs or isolated playlists is NOT the answer. I don't see what's so hard about allowing users to create personal profiles that they can refer people to in order to share music. They could just put a bar at the top of the For You section with almost no clutter to the new, sleek UI. Hopefully there's a bit more to Music that will be unveiled in the fall. Fingers crossed.