Is Apple getting Siri-ous in the face of Amazon's Alexa Echo?

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  • Reply 101 of 154
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    Soli said:
    Soli said:
    I'm curious what people actually ask Alexa to do. I just don't see the benefit or why I'd want one (or a bunch, actually) in my home.

    What would be the Top 10 questions/commands you give Alexa that makes it worthwhile?
    Top 10? I'm not sure I could tell you an accurate list.. Same for Siri, although my most common non-query to Siri is probably telling it to fuck off after it repeatedly fails on simple commands.

    Some of the things I do is create multiple timers for cooking. I also ask it to music or news from any variety of sources, including my personal library. The weather forecast is another one. A nice feature with having an Echo is that you can practically mumble this from across the room while passing through the room right after waking up and it'll be spot on. Another nice feature of the Echo is being able to say "Alexa…" while music is playing fairly loudly and it'll be able to pause the music to listen to the rest of your command. If it's up too loud you may have to yell "Alexa." Speaking of volume, I like the 1 through 10 volume setting over Siri's percentage option, which I only learned about in the last week. The aforementioned alarms and asking for the time with remarkable ease is one. I can't come close to that with "Hey, Siri…" even though on paper it might look like the same thing. Flash briefings of news are nice while you're in the kitchen cooking, which you can personalize. Having stuff added to a to-do list, shopping list, and to your Amazon cart is convenient. I only use the latter for Echo as I still use Notes in my iPhone and Mac with manual entries. Trivia is great with Echo during a dinner conversation. And if you don't have a song in your library, it will look to play it for you from its collection, and if not it will at least play a sample from its Amazon page. Kind of fun to be talking about a movie and then play clips from the soundtrack from the Amazon website. If you want to play full songs you can just ask it to play a genre. If you have some other service added it will try that, otherwise it will try other options. Unlike with the Apple TV's TV app and with Amazon's Prime Video which lumps paid and free content together without a hierarchy, Alexa's algorithm looks to satisfy your requests with your personalized settings and services, and then works to other options if those don't pan out.

    It's also now great for smart home integration, checking the status of a flight before you leave, ordering an Uber/Lyft, and my roommate used it to find her keys and iPhone as she was prone to misplacing the moment she put them down. There are simply too many features to list and I'm forgetting a million things I use it for without thinking twice. Your request is like asking me the top 10 things I talk about with someone I've lived with for 2 years. I'm not saying your question is unreasonable since we're talking about technology, but from my end that's what the question feels like since it does so much.


    Sorry, but not one thing you listed is anything I'd ever see myself using. There's technology that actually improves your life and technology that's "cool". To me this seems more like the latter.
    1) That's perfectly fine if you have no use for a voice controlled system in your home, but I guess that means you don't cook at home so you have no need for timers, an eidetic memory so you have no need for converting measurements, and so great at math that you'd have no need to figure out portions that aren't part of a recipe all while your hands are too dirty to use your iPhone or another device.

    2) I find it hard to believe that you looked through all 10,000 Skills and saw not a single thing that could be useful to you, but let's assume that you did look through every possible feature that the Alexa service offers and found none that suits your needs; what does that have to do with the technology improving the lives of others? Just because it's not for you doesn't mean you should write it off as being beneficial to others. The iPad is not the ideal computing device for my needs, but I'd never say that the iPad is a pointless gadget that can't possibly "improve your life."


    I just don't see how a voice assistant (Alexa, Google or Siri) is going to improve my morning routine, save me any time, or provide me better information that what I'm already getting. Nor how it will improve my daily routine at work where I DON'T have something like Alexa on my desk or in the numerous locations I'm required to be. Or when I get home. 

  • Reply 102 of 154
    Here's a recent comparison of Siri and Google Assistant.

    brian green
  • Reply 103 of 154
    Yes, Apple is making gobs of money, but this is in spite of Siri, not because of it.  Hopefully the VoiceIQ acquisition will result in significant improvements in the near future.
  • Reply 104 of 154
    tzeshantzeshan Posts: 2,351member
    gatorguy said:
    Soli said:
    Soli said:
    I'm curious what people actually ask Alexa to do. I just don't see the benefit or why I'd want one (or a bunch, actually) in my home.

    What would be the Top 10 questions/commands you give Alexa that makes it worthwhile?
    Top 10? I'm not sure I could tell you an accurate list.. Same for Siri, although my most common non-query to Siri is probably telling it to fuck off after it repeatedly fails on simple commands.

    Some of the things I do is create multiple timers for cooking. I also ask it to music or news from any variety of sources, including my personal library. The weather forecast is another one. A nice feature with having an Echo is that you can practically mumble this from across the room while passing through the room right after waking up and it'll be spot on. Another nice feature of the Echo is being able to say "Alexa…" while music is playing fairly loudly and it'll be able to pause the music to listen to the rest of your command. If it's up too loud you may have to yell "Alexa." Speaking of volume, I like the 1 through 10 volume setting over Siri's percentage option, which I only learned about in the last week. The aforementioned alarms and asking for the time with remarkable ease is one. I can't come close to that with "Hey, Siri…" even though on paper it might look like the same thing. Flash briefings of news are nice while you're in the kitchen cooking, which you can personalize. Having stuff added to a to-do list, shopping list, and to your Amazon cart is convenient. I only use the latter for Echo as I still use Notes in my iPhone and Mac with manual entries. Trivia is great with Echo during a dinner conversation. And if you don't have a song in your library, it will look to play it for you from its collection, and if not it will at least play a sample from its Amazon page. Kind of fun to be talking about a movie and then play clips from the soundtrack from the Amazon website. If you want to play full songs you can just ask it to play a genre. If you have some other service added it will try that, otherwise it will try other options. Unlike with the Apple TV's TV app and with Amazon's Prime Video which lumps paid and free content together without a hierarchy, Alexa's algorithm looks to satisfy your requests with your personalized settings and services, and then works to other options if those don't pan out.

    It's also now great for smart home integration, checking the status of a flight before you leave, ordering an Uber/Lyft, and my roommate used it to find her keys and iPhone as she was prone to misplacing the moment she put them down. There are simply too many features to list and I'm forgetting a million things I use it for without thinking twice. Your request is like asking me the top 10 things I talk about with someone I've lived with for 2 years. I'm not saying your question is unreasonable since we're talking about technology, but from my end that's what the question feels like since it does so much.


    Sorry, but not one thing you listed is anything I'd ever see myself using. There's technology that actually improves your life and technology that's "cool". To me this seems more like the latter.
    1) That's perfectly fine if you have no use for a voice controlled system in your home, but I guess that means you don't cook at home so you have no need for timers, an eidetic memory so you have no need for converting measurements, and so great at math that you'd have no need to figure out portions that aren't part of a recipe all while your hands are too dirty to use your iPhone or another device.

    2) I find it hard to believe that you looked through all 10,000 Skills and saw not a single thing that could be useful to you, but let's assume that you did look through every possible feature that the Alexa service offers and found none that suits your needs; what does that have to do with the technology improving the lives of others? Just because it's not for you doesn't mean you should write it off as being beneficial to others. The iPad is not the ideal computing device for my needs, but I'd never say that the iPad is a pointless gadget that can't possibly "improve your life."


    I just don't see how a voice assistant (Alexa, Google or Siri) is going to improve my morning routine, save me any time, or provide me better information that what I'm already getting. Nor how it will improve my daily routine at work where I DON'T have something like Alexa on my desk or in the numerous locations I'm required to be. Or when I get home. 

    This is already available to iPhone users through Google.
  • Reply 105 of 154
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    tzeshan said:
    gatorguy said:
    Soli said:
    Soli said:
    I'm curious what people actually ask Alexa to do. I just don't see the benefit or why I'd want one (or a bunch, actually) in my home.

    What would be the Top 10 questions/commands you give Alexa that makes it worthwhile?
    Top 10? I'm not sure I could tell you an accurate list.. Same for Siri, although my most common non-query to Siri is probably telling it to fuck off after it repeatedly fails on simple commands.

    Some of the things I do is create multiple timers for cooking. I also ask it to music or news from any variety of sources, including my personal library. The weather forecast is another one. A nice feature with having an Echo is that you can practically mumble this from across the room while passing through the room right after waking up and it'll be spot on. Another nice feature of the Echo is being able to say "Alexa…" while music is playing fairly loudly and it'll be able to pause the music to listen to the rest of your command. If it's up too loud you may have to yell "Alexa." Speaking of volume, I like the 1 through 10 volume setting over Siri's percentage option, which I only learned about in the last week. The aforementioned alarms and asking for the time with remarkable ease is one. I can't come close to that with "Hey, Siri…" even though on paper it might look like the same thing. Flash briefings of news are nice while you're in the kitchen cooking, which you can personalize. Having stuff added to a to-do list, shopping list, and to your Amazon cart is convenient. I only use the latter for Echo as I still use Notes in my iPhone and Mac with manual entries. Trivia is great with Echo during a dinner conversation. And if you don't have a song in your library, it will look to play it for you from its collection, and if not it will at least play a sample from its Amazon page. Kind of fun to be talking about a movie and then play clips from the soundtrack from the Amazon website. If you want to play full songs you can just ask it to play a genre. If you have some other service added it will try that, otherwise it will try other options. Unlike with the Apple TV's TV app and with Amazon's Prime Video which lumps paid and free content together without a hierarchy, Alexa's algorithm looks to satisfy your requests with your personalized settings and services, and then works to other options if those don't pan out.

    It's also now great for smart home integration, checking the status of a flight before you leave, ordering an Uber/Lyft, and my roommate used it to find her keys and iPhone as she was prone to misplacing the moment she put them down. There are simply too many features to list and I'm forgetting a million things I use it for without thinking twice. Your request is like asking me the top 10 things I talk about with someone I've lived with for 2 years. I'm not saying your question is unreasonable since we're talking about technology, but from my end that's what the question feels like since it does so much.


    Sorry, but not one thing you listed is anything I'd ever see myself using. There's technology that actually improves your life and technology that's "cool". To me this seems more like the latter.
    1) That's perfectly fine if you have no use for a voice controlled system in your home, but I guess that means you don't cook at home so you have no need for timers, an eidetic memory so you have no need for converting measurements, and so great at math that you'd have no need to figure out portions that aren't part of a recipe all while your hands are too dirty to use your iPhone or another device.

    2) I find it hard to believe that you looked through all 10,000 Skills and saw not a single thing that could be useful to you, but let's assume that you did look through every possible feature that the Alexa service offers and found none that suits your needs; what does that have to do with the technology improving the lives of others? Just because it's not for you doesn't mean you should write it off as being beneficial to others. The iPad is not the ideal computing device for my needs, but I'd never say that the iPad is a pointless gadget that can't possibly "improve your life."


    I just don't see how a voice assistant (Alexa, Google or Siri) is going to improve my morning routine, save me any time, or provide me better information that what I'm already getting. Nor how it will improve my daily routine at work where I DON'T have something like Alexa on my desk or in the numerous locations I'm required to be. Or when I get home. 

    This is already available to iPhone users through Google.
    That was for @ericthehalfbee who couldn't conceive of a way that any of the smart voice services from Google, Amazon or Apple could help him or save any time on tasks he wanted to accomplish. It wasn't to compare Google and Apple.
  • Reply 106 of 154

    "Eidetic memory"? Did you look in a thesaurus to find an obscure word instead of just saying "photographic memory" or "perfect memory"?
    It's not at all an uncommon word. Especially for Big Bang Theory fans.... ;-)
  • Reply 107 of 154
    flaneurflaneur Posts: 4,526member

    "Eidetic memory"? Did you look in a thesaurus to find an obscure word instead of just saying "photographic memory" or "perfect memory"?
    It's not at all an uncommon word. Especially for Big Bang Theory fans.... ;-)
    Or fans of Terence McKenna. 
  • Reply 108 of 154
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    "Eidetic memory"? Did you look in a thesaurus to find an obscure word instead of just saying "photographic memory" or "perfect memory"? You picked a bad example in cooking since I've been cooking since I was 10. And yes, I can convert anything related to cooking in my head. It's not that difficult nor does it require you to be great at math. My mother and grandmother could also do it. It's not rocket science.
    1) Eidetic memory is a term you should add to your vocabulary and use in place of the erroneous photographic memory. Wikipedia does a good job of explaining why:
    Although the terms eidetic memory and photographic memory may be used interchangeably, they are also distinguished, with eidetic memory referring to the ability to view memories like photographs for a few minutes, and photographic memory referring to the ability to recall page or text numbers, or similar, in great detail. In the case of distinguishing the concepts, eidetic memory has been documented while photographic memory is a popular culture myth that has never been demonstrated to exist.

    2) I fail to see how you cooking age 10 means that no one else has a use for an Echo or why that automatically means you can convert, say, grams into ounces in your head or tell me how long any turkey needs to thaw andcook based on its weight. I cook, and I still do research and double check my findings. Not being "rocket science" doesn't mean science isn't involved. 

    I just don't see how a voice assistant (Alexa, Google or Siri) is going to improve my morning routine, save me any time, or provide me better information that what I'm already getting.
    Not improving your life doesn't mean it doesn't improve others. Should the iPad not exist because I don't have a need for one, or is it fine that I can understand how the iPad is not only useful, but the ideal computing device for millions of people? I use Siri every day but you'd want that removed, or at least the part that will do conversions for you, because you claim you can do ant conversation in your head? How can you think that argument sounds reasonable?


    PS: Perfect memory is more absurd than even so-called perfect vision. At least with perfect vision it references an actual baseline of visual acuity.
    edited January 2017 gatorguyboredumb
  • Reply 109 of 154
    flaneurflaneur Posts: 4,526member

    Holy shįî. I hope someone from the company is paying attention to this stunning conversation. 

    I think we may may be in the midst of a Trumpster-level mindshift in the Apple faithful. I am sensing a serious sentiment shift. 
    It'd be great if Apple actually DID pay attention, but I don't see evidence of them doing so in any meaningful way.  Siri has been around for a rather long time, and yet many of us out here feel like Apple hasn't pushed forward and made it great.  If they are working to improve it with their various acquisitions and hiring additional personnel, that work has yet to be realized.  I'm underwhelmed by their performance, as are many on this forum.  For once, it'd be great if Apple actually listened to their customers on an issue and actually did something to fix it.  Siri has a long way to go to actually be a Digital Assistant.
    Of course they're paying attention. Every time execs like Schiller or Federighi appear in an interview, you hear them echoing and addtressing specific blogosphere criticisms point by point. Correcting the knds of things in this thread are non-trivial matters.  Ritchie and Gruber had an interesting exchange on Siri in the last Talk Show; worth a listen. I can't point to minutes, but it was medium-early in the show.
  • Reply 110 of 154
    rob53 said:
    Soli said:
    This is especially true for the Google and Amazon offerings. Having those things listening all the time is just not on. If you care about your personal security then just don't use these things. Do you really want a feed of your home conversations to the NSA, GCHQ and worse, the FSB? And one that you have to pay for out of your own money?
    Just go read/watch 1984 and see what Orwell wrote in 1948 and how close these things are to 'Big Brother'.

    Sorry, no, just no.
    Can you shut up with this ridiculous, myopic conspiracy theory. You have microphones around you every day of your life, but because there's a device listening for the keyword "Alexa" you've jumped to the erroneous conclusion that it's not just listening for the keyword "Alexa" but also recording everything you're saying; yet you've completely ignored the glaring fact that your smartphone, tablet, PC, and many other devices have microphones and cameras built into them and you have no idea if they're secretly recording what you're doing at any given time. And I bet you install 3rd-party apps on your devices without making sure that you've read and understood every line of the code to make sure that they aren't subverting the terms of use and gathering data about your usage patterns in ways you're not even aware.
    Soli, I think you need to get your head out of the sand. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazon-echo-data-evidence-in-murder-case/ already shows the police force is going after any kind of information they can. They also went after a smart water thermometer. This isn't a conspiracy theory, it's already happening. Yes, we have all kinds of microphones and cameras around us but for the most part, Apple has tried to make sure these components don't work without the user knowing about it. As for Amazon and Google, their business is selling people's information to others. That's not Apple's business. If you don't believe the NSA is pushing for access to these network-based communication devices (or they already have it through "deals"), then you don't understand what the NSA is tasked to do. 

    As for the Echo only turning on when it's summoned, can you prove this? Are their any service words it uses other than having to start with Alexa? Can it be hacked, just like everything else. Where does the data go, how much of the conversations are saved by Amazon and is any of it encrypted? Does Amazon scan the conversations (like Google does on everything--no, I don't have proof of this) and use it for targeted marketing? These are all serious questions that need to be investigated and not some ramblings from another conspiracy theorist but from someone who spent their entire work life dealing with limiting access by others to information I was working on.
    I've been thinking about this lately. My default position is to not share anything I don't have to, but I'm wondering if I'm being over-cautious and maybe even self-defeating.

    Google collects information about what I do and uses it to build a profile on me that allows them to guess what kind of advertising will appeal to me. Okay. So what? Turns out that if I have to see ads, I actually prefer offers of discounts on audio software over seeing what's new in tampons this year. In exchange for Google selling advertising, I get free access to a really astonishingly good search engine for free. It SEEMS like a win-win, so what am I missing?

    As for Apple collecting data to improve Siri, can't user data be gathered in an anonymous way, aggregated, and used to refine the system without compromising user privacy? I assumed that was already happening. Is it not? I've checked the boxes that grant Apple permission to track my use because I *WANT* Apple to see what works, what doesn't, and make adjustments to improve my experience.

    I don't want to betray my own best interest out of ignorance, but I'm starting to wonder if that self-interest isn't sometimes better served by sharing a little information instead of huddling in the dark under a blanket with the phone unplugged.
    gatorguySoli
  • Reply 111 of 154

    Sorry, but not one thing you listed is anything I'd ever see myself using. There's technology that actually improves your life and technology that's "cool". To me this seems more like the latter.

    Whew, FINALLY! It took a long time for someone to say "I have no use for that, therefore it has no value to anyone else." :)
    Soligatorguyanantksundaram
  • Reply 112 of 154
    Soli said:
    flaneur said:
    Haven't read the whole thread yet, but I expect maximum whining from the most entitled, spoiled generation in the history of civilization.

    For anyone who gets out of the house and operates in the real world, including doing the ancient practice of driving a car, Siri works great and is indesensible for making calls, getting directions, that kind of thing. All else that people expect a voice assistant to do is gravy, and a work in progress.

    The spoiled narcissists in our midst are going to destroy the best things America has produced, including this experiment in Democracy and Apple's experiment in conscientious manufacturing.
    Wow the Apple apologizing is getting to a level that equals Trump sycophants defending everything he says and does. It would be nice if the apologists could simply say 'that's not my experience' rather than name calling and snark. And it's sad that to see some people keep lowering the bar for Apple. Pretty much everything you mentioned are things Siri could do 5 years ago. We should give Apple a prize because Siri can still do that 5 years later? We shouldn't expect more? I don't want Siri to be good enough. I don't pay a premium for Apple hardware for 'good enough' software and services. I want Apple kicking everyone's ass. That's what I pay for.
    You do know that Siri has improved in the last 5 years, right? I would assume you'd know that but your comments sound as if you're saying nothing has improved. The issue is whether it's improved as much as other services, especially when compared to the likes of the Echo which Amazon seemingly had no previous experience in this game. At least with Google they had tested and shelved all the parts that would make Google Now which allowed them to come out with a Siri competitor not long after Siri was introduced in the iPhone 4S in 2011.

    PS: Personally, I've had so much trouble with Siri lately that I'm going to wipe my phone. Maybe it's the microphone in my iPhone not working as well as it used to (I did check for lint covering the mics), or maybe it's the new on-board AI for Siri in iOS 10 (which seems odd since it still can't do something as simple as setting a timer or changing a song without an internet connection back to the Siri servers), but something is really wrong. Parsing has about a 2 chance of working, and when it does it probably won't be able to complete the request—like when I ask it to play an artist, song or album which I have in my Music app, which was bought from the iTunes Store, and which was parsed correctly in the displayed text, it says it doesn't exist. This doesn't mean that Siri is off, but it does mean something is, hence the need for a restore to help locate or resolve the fault.
    I don't think your phone is the problem. I'm constantly amazed by how poorly Siri handles music requests. It only successfully plays what I ask for about one time in three or four.
  • Reply 113 of 154
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    Soli said:
    flaneur said:
    Haven't read the whole thread yet, but I expect maximum whining from the most entitled, spoiled generation in the history of civilization.

    For anyone who gets out of the house and operates in the real world, including doing the ancient practice of driving a car, Siri works great and is indesensible for making calls, getting directions, that kind of thing. All else that people expect a voice assistant to do is gravy, and a work in progress.

    The spoiled narcissists in our midst are going to destroy the best things America has produced, including this experiment in Democracy and Apple's experiment in conscientious manufacturing.
    Wow the Apple apologizing is getting to a level that equals Trump sycophants defending everything he says and does. It would be nice if the apologists could simply say 'that's not my experience' rather than name calling and snark. And it's sad that to see some people keep lowering the bar for Apple. Pretty much everything you mentioned are things Siri could do 5 years ago. We should give Apple a prize because Siri can still do that 5 years later? We shouldn't expect more? I don't want Siri to be good enough. I don't pay a premium for Apple hardware for 'good enough' software and services. I want Apple kicking everyone's ass. That's what I pay for.
    You do know that Siri has improved in the last 5 years, right? I would assume you'd know that but your comments sound as if you're saying nothing has improved. The issue is whether it's improved as much as other services, especially when compared to the likes of the Echo which Amazon seemingly had no previous experience in this game. At least with Google they had tested and shelved all the parts that would make Google Now which allowed them to come out with a Siri competitor not long after Siri was introduced in the iPhone 4S in 2011.

    PS: Personally, I've had so much trouble with Siri lately that I'm going to wipe my phone. Maybe it's the microphone in my iPhone not working as well as it used to (I did check for lint covering the mics), or maybe it's the new on-board AI for Siri in iOS 10 (which seems odd since it still can't do something as simple as setting a timer or changing a song without an internet connection back to the Siri servers), but something is really wrong. Parsing has about a 2 chance of working, and when it does it probably won't be able to complete the request—like when I ask it to play an artist, song or album which I have in my Music app, which was bought from the iTunes Store, and which was parsed correctly in the displayed text, it says it doesn't exist. This doesn't mean that Siri is off, but it does mean something is, hence the need for a restore to help locate or resolve the fault.
    I don't think your phone is the problem. I'm constantly amazed by how poorly Siri handles music requests. It only successfully plays what I ask for about one time in three or four.
    After restoring from scratch Siri is now working with my Music library and parsing other text better, so it's definitely not a phone HW issue.

    PS:  really dislike that Apple doesn't warn you that when you wipe your phone that everything your Watch does after the phone's wipe doesn't get saved. You then have to go into the Watch and reset it, then go into the Watch app on the iPhone to restart the pairing, setup, and syncing process all over again. If I was having a perfect week or month with the Activity app I'd be totally pissed because it would've made me that goal. I'd love for there to at least be a warning, but ideally I'd like for the Watch to know that it was previously synced to that account (not device because this also becomes an issue when you get a new iPhone) and then include any additional data you've gathered since restoring/settign up your current iPhone or getting a new iPhone setup. Maybe in watchOS 4.0.

    PPS: One thing I really dislike with iOS 10 is that you can no longer change the bottom row of icons in the Music App… and three of the 5 are specifically for Apple Music which I've never tried and have no intention of using. I miss being able to set the icons down there that best suit my needs.
    edited January 2017 anantksundaram
  • Reply 114 of 154
    Anyone who puts one of these devices   Amazon Echo or Google Home in their house is a naive fool. You are essentially forfeiting the most private, intimate moments or your life for an idiots convenience.  Every sound you make involving loved ones, pets, games,  on and on you name it EVERY SOUND is recorded and stored. Orwellian nightmare come to pass truly horrifying. A transformative shift in human existence. 
  • Reply 115 of 154
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    Anyone who puts one of these devices   Amazon Echo or Google Home in their house is a naive fool. You are essentially forfeiting the most private, intimate moments or your life for an idiots convenience.  Every sound you make involving loved ones, pets, games,  on and on you name it EVERY SOUND is recorded and stored. Orwellian nightmare come to pass truly horrifying. A transformative shift in human existence. 
    No it's not. Stop spreading FUD, troll.
    anantksundaram
  • Reply 116 of 154
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,335member
    Formulating an opinion about Apple's ability to successfully execute across multiple product and service lines, all tied together through a rich ecosystem, and scaled out to global proportions based on one ancillary feature like Siri is very shortsighted and overly selective. Yes, it is always possible and very likely that strong followers and me-too-engineers will cherry pick Individual features and concepts that have been successfully vetted and legitimized by Apple and at great expense to Apple. Siri isn't perfect, none of the voice interaction systems are, but it's still a single feature and not a leading indicator of the total value Apple's larger set of integrated offerings continue to deliver to the market. Implying that senior executives at Apple should be canned because Siri isn't perfect is like saying that Bezos should have stepped down after Amazon's disastrous smartphone whiff. 
    pscooter63Rayz2016
  • Reply 117 of 154
    kevin keekevin kee Posts: 1,289member
    I think Airpods make Siri great again. I know for the fact that people didn't use Siri in public because of how nerdy they look talking 'to' the phone. Airpods remove that equation by putting Siri directly into your ear and microphone. In private I use Siri a lot. Comparing Siri to Google Now or Alexa, there are a lot of differences and similarities on how actually people using them. One thing I would like to see Apple improve Siri: remove the round-about way of showing results. Some people have a patient of monkey, instead of going though 'another step', I would like to see Siri being more 'proactive' to show the result straight away.... and then offer another alternative below.
  • Reply 118 of 154
    koopkoop Posts: 337member
    I bought two Echos last year. They are often one of the most used tech products in the apartment, simply because they do useful things like control lights, set kitchen timers and play music. The importance is that Echo is a complete product, with a refined skillset that's not hard to use and manage. The thing wont change how you talk to a computer, and it's probably not that much smarter than Siri in many respects. But the actual fact there's a speaker that's always sitting there and ready to go to play music, control lights, check weather, play radio stations and even do some nice amazon centric stuff like ordering, checking orders and playing Amazon books is more than useful.

    The moral of the story is that Apple probably doesn't need to sit on their hands here. Google Home isn't taking the smart speaker market by storm despite being more conversational and capable. These products aren't about complex conversations and scifi dreams of talking to your home, they are meant to be utilities and make life a bit more convenient around the home. Apple should be putting their dedicated speaker out as soon as possible. 
    Soli
  • Reply 119 of 154
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    flaneur said:

    Holy shįî. I hope someone from the company is paying attention to this stunning conversation. 

    I think we may may be in the midst of a Trumpster-level mindshift in the Apple faithful. I am sensing a serious sentiment shift. 
    It'd be great if Apple actually DID pay attention, but I don't see evidence of them doing so in any meaningful way.  Siri has been around for a rather long time, and yet many of us out here feel like Apple hasn't pushed forward and made it great.  If they are working to improve it with their various acquisitions and hiring additional personnel, that work has yet to be realized.  I'm underwhelmed by their performance, as are many on this forum.  For once, it'd be great if Apple actually listened to their customers on an issue and actually did something to fix it.  Siri has a long way to go to actually be a Digital Assistant.
    Of course they're paying attention. Every time execs like Schiller or Federighi appear in an interview, you hear them echoing and addtressing specific blogosphere criticisms point by point. Correcting the knds of things in this thread are non-trivial matters.  Ritchie and Gruber had an interesting exchange on Siri in the last Talk Show; worth a listen. I can't point to minutes, but it was medium-early in the show.

    I think the problem is one of perception. Apple is listening, but they're listening to their core customers, not the click-baited spouting on blog sites. Anantsundaram says he senses a sentiment shift, and he's absolutely right. But the shift is not in the so-called Apple faithful, it is in the contributors to the blogs. As these blogs chase page clicks above everything else, you are naturally going to get more trolls and more complainers. That is only one issue however, because once you get past the trolls and malcontents, you will find more complaints in folk we know to be long term Apple users. And herein lies the problem. Apple's core customer base has shifted over the past few years which is why I'm amused by the term 'Apple faithful' because there hasn't been any such thing for at least a decade, not as far as Apple is concerned anyway. The remnants of the faithful do live in forums and are complaining (a lot) but the unfortunate fact is that being faithful does not mean you're part of Apple's target group, especially when you whinge on about the removal of legacy ports. Apple's demographic moves with the times, and that is the same for every tech company. Microsoft realised this way too late. They thought that their core customers were Windows users, and so built a mobile strategy around that. Apple realised that the customers they were chasing were mobile users, and that's why the phone projects were completely separate from the desktop projects. In much the same way that the new laptops are not aimed at the 'Apple faithful', they're aimed at the new brand of hipster mobile professional. Apple does not recognise the concept of the Apple Faithful; it would be commercial suicide if they did because most of the Apple Faithful will be dead relatively soon. Always be careful of this: don't mix up the Apple Faithful with the Apple customer base. The customer base changes in taste and workflow requirements; the Apple Faithful refuses to evolve at all.

    Contrary to what has been written in this article, there are problems with Siri stemming from speech recognition and usability. But Apple didn't read forum whining to ascertain this; they used hard data received from millions of requests that go unfulfilled for one reason or another. To say that Siri hasn't improved over the last five years is rubbish; it has improved, but not as fast as the competition, which is pretty crap when you consider that Apple really got the ball rolling. Apple recognises this, which is why they bought VocalIQ and gave them a pretty free hand to carry on their work.

    http://uk.businessinsider.com/how-apples-vocaliq-ai-works-2016-5

    When the integration work is completed we should (should!) have better understanding in noisy environments, and just as importantly, Siri will better understand context. Commands will be able to span several phrases, allowing you to go back and revise them in a more natural way. Coupled with the API which allows third parties to use Siri with their apps, then I reckon we'll see improvements going forward.

  • Reply 120 of 154
    bluefire1bluefire1 Posts: 1,301member
    I'd be happy if Apple finally cleaned up the iTunes interface.
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