Ex-Apple executives snipe on Twitter following Siri launch account

AppleInsiderAppleInsider
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The day after an account surfaced that laid out the troubled history of Apple's Siri feature before, at, and after launch, a few of the report's key players are arguing about it on Twitter.




The piece, authored by The Information's Aaron Tilley and Kevin McLaughlin, detailed various stories of behind-the-scenes turmoil before, during and after Siri's launch, which the story argues has led to Siri falling behind its competitors to various degrees.

Jessica Lessin, the founder of the Information, tweeted a link to the article Thursday, while including a quote from former top Apple executive Richard Williamson about how "after launch, Siri was a disaster.. it was slow, when it worked at all. The software was riddled with serious bugs. Those problems lie entirely with the original Siri team, certainly not me."

"After launch, Siri was a disaster," Mr. Williamson wrote. "It was slow, when it worked at all. The software was riddled with serious bugs. Those problems lie entirely with the original Siri team, certainly not me."https://t.co/McJCTucXFv

-- Jessica Lessin (@Jessicalessin)


This led to a response from a member of that original Siri team, Dag Kittlaus, who was cofounder and CEO of Siri before Apple acquired it, fired back. And he was sure to bring up William's greatest career embarrassment, Apple Maps:

This statement, wholly false, was made by the architect and head of the biggest launch disaster in Apple history, Apple Maps. In reality Siri worked great at launch but, like any new platform under unexpectedly massive load, required scaling adjustments and 24 hour workdays.

-- Dag Kittlaus (@Dagk)


Kittlaus wrote in a subsequent tweet that "Siri wasn't perfect but it was the first of its kind and set a completely new bar for conversational assistants that, ten years later, every top tech company is attempting to replicate and dominate." Journalist Brian X. Chen, now with the New York Times, backed up Kittlaus' side:

As an early reviewer of the iPhone 4S, I definitely remember Siri working great at launch - especially when only about a dozen of us reviewers were grilling it with questions. It wasn't until a huge amount of people started using Siri that it had reliability problems. https://t.co/068MdSVeG6

-- Brian X. Chen (@bxchen)


The Information's piece, which relied on a dozen anonymous sources, laid out a history of how the Siri product was rushed forward before it was ready with the launch of the iPhone 4S in 2011, which coincided with the passing of Steve Jobs the same week of its unveiling. Also alleged in the account is that the Siri team has lacked strong leadership since launch, and that the product has fallen behind Amazon's Alexa in part due to its failure to sufficiently court the developer community.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 30
    thttht Posts: 5,437member
    Losing Forstall was a huge change, and the management realignment that followed hasn’t fully recovered from it while Apple expanded to having 3 more platforms (watchOS, tvOS, whatever HomePod is using). They need another SVP, at least. Like organize for a SVP for macOS and iOS and an SVP for watchOS, tvOS and HomePod, basically, a SVP for large screen operating systems and a SVP for embedded operating systems.

    There is going to be a wearables OS, based on iOS, that will run on future headphones too, so it isn’t a small job, and voice is going to be a big part of it. Siri should be folded into whoever is running watchOS, tvOS, etc.

    They’ve gotten so much bigger since Siri launched, but their management org has been the same since 2012. Stuff is falling through the seams.
    hammeroftruthanantksundaram
  • Reply 2 of 30
    maestro64maestro64 Posts: 5,043member
    I go back to what I said in other thread on this topic, Apple bought a product which was already on the market, how could Apple have issues releasing a product which was already available.

    I have to agree with Richard Williamson, the problem falls into the laps of the original developers, they must have delivered a half baked product to Apple. it is one thing to be a standalone app which a limited number of people use, then becoming part of the OS with 100's of millions of people using it in various languages. Then all original developers ran from the ship they build can claim creative difference lead them to leave.
  • Reply 3 of 30
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    tht said:
    Losing Forstall was a huge change, and the management realignment that followed hasn’t fully recovered from it while Apple expanded to having 3 more platforms (watchOS, tvOS, whatever HomePod is using). They need another SVP, at least. Like organize for a SVP for macOS and iOS and an SVP for watchOS, tvOS and HomePod, basically, a SVP for large screen operating systems and a SVP for embedded operating systems.

    There is going to be a wearables OS, based on iOS, that will run on future headphones too, so it isn’t a small job, and voice is going to be a big part of it. Siri should be folded into whoever is running watchOS, tvOS, etc.

    They’ve gotten so much bigger since Siri launched, but their management org has been the same since 2012. Stuff is falling through the seams.
    Forstall and his deputy (the guy shifting blame on to his team) were in charge of Siri and Apple Maps when they launched. So that’s two ginormous screwups at the same time. If Apple is missing something, it isn’t him. 
    edited March 2018 fastasleepgilly017laytechchasmstevenozjony0
  • Reply 4 of 30
    thttht Posts: 5,437member
    Rayz2016 said:
    tht said:
    Losing Forstall was a huge change, and the management realignment that followed hasn’t fully recovered from it while Apple expanded to having 3 more platforms (watchOS, tvOS, whatever HomePod is using). They need another SVP, at least. Like organize for a SVP for macOS and iOS and an SVP for watchOS, tvOS and HomePod, basically, a SVP for large screen operating systems and a SVP for embedded operating systems.

    There is going to be a wearables OS, based on iOS, that will run on future headphones too, so it isn’t a small job, and voice is going to be a big part of it. Siri should be folded into whoever is running watchOS, tvOS, etc.

    They’ve gotten so much bigger since Siri launched, but their management org has been the same since 2012. Stuff is falling through the seams.
    Forstall and his deputy (the guy shifting blame on to his team) were in charge of Siri and Apple Maps when they launched. So that’s two ginormous screwups at the same time. If Apple is missing something, it isn’t him. 
    This Williamson dude sounds like a douchebag to me too. Forstall hasn’t said anything. But why do you think I’m saying it’s because of losing those two people.

    I said they need another SVP, at least. There’s just many things for the current executive team to handle. It needs to get bigger. One to manage macOS and iOS. One to manage the embedded style OS functionality like watchOS and HomePod.

  • Reply 5 of 30
    lito_lupenalito_lupena Posts: 116member
    who knows if siri is actually finally fixed and is just awaiting release in the next wwdc? all this news coming out is just to draw attention and renew awareness of the assistant.
  • Reply 6 of 30
    patchythepiratepatchythepirate Posts: 1,254member

    I don't care who is to blame or how siri compares to the competition. I just want siri not to be a piece of shit, which doesn't seem like a lot to ask after 6-7 years.

    I love Apple, to an almost irrational degree, but I'm glad all this is coming out, and I think Apple, sadly, deserves every bit of negativity related to this issue.

    It's amazing how (apparently) in denial Apple has been about siri's inadequacies. It's always hard to come up with examples of siri's failings because each one in itself is relatively insignificant, and once siri messes up you don't try that thing again, so it's very hard to remember specific examples. But there's so many issues, even BASIC things..
    -messaging someone is pretty much useless, if you pause for half a second to think about your next word that bitch siri chimes in, "ready to send?", with no way to redo or edit.
    -even dictating a phone number doesn't work a lot of the time; me: "call 345-67 (pause for half a second to think of rest of number)", then siri butts in: "calling 34567". That is not a complicated task. That's just fucking stupidity/laziness on the part of the siri team.
    -sometimes the dictation to siri will be correct, which you can read on the screen, then siri's response will have almost nothing to do with what was dictated on screen. How does that make any sense?
    -siri can't do more than one task at a time. so frustrating: "hey siri, I'm home.. hey siri..turn my livinng room lights white..hey siri, turn my living room lights to 100 percent..hey siri..."
    -I tried using siri to get an uber (not when they were having issues), seemed like a super basic, easy way to try out the new siri skills, got "I'm sorry, I can't do that right now"
    -anytime I try to so something that requires the phone to unlock, when I unlock the phone as notified, the siri query has been completely dropped and doesn't carry over. Seems like a pretty fucking simple thing to be able do to after 6 years.
    -siri is supposed to be good at music, right? Especially with home pod. I'm just trying to casually use homepod (absolutely love the hardware, as usual), not beta test it, yet I run into problems all the time:
    ---As I mentioned in a recent post, siri had no fucking clue what I was talking about when referring to an album "Anjunadeep 07" if I interjected the word "volume" or "number" in between "anjunadeep" and "seven". Again, stupid to need to have only one, exact phrasing.
    ---if siri doesn't understand what you're trying to play, it will guess, and start playing something instead of asking for clarification, including playing things that are not eve fucking close to what I was trying to play.
    ---can't start playlists from a specific track, must start only from the beginning
    ---can't find things that are clearly on Apple music and which are also downloaded to my phone
    ---I even had problems saying "play my new music mix" "play playlist new music" siri kept fucking up (and no, I don't have an alternative, personal playlist titled "new music"). It works now for whatever reason, but that should never have been an issue.
    ---has a lot of difficulty recognizing anything that's not in perfect English (which is a huge fraction of bands/songs/albums etc), compounded by siri's wild guessing with no attempt at clarification, .
    ---other things that slip my mind right now...

    I'm sure a bunch of other examples will pop into my head as soon as I hit "post comment" on this post.

    I've never been bothered, at all, by a lack of features from siri. I just want siri to do what siri was supposed to do from day one, and do it at least somewhat decently.
    iqatedocornchiphammeroftruthanantksundaramlarryjwfeudalist
  • Reply 7 of 30
    canukstormcanukstorm Posts: 2,699member
    Rayz2016 said:
    tht said:
    Losing Forstall was a huge change, and the management realignment that followed hasn’t fully recovered from it while Apple expanded to having 3 more platforms (watchOS, tvOS, whatever HomePod is using). They need another SVP, at least. Like organize for a SVP for macOS and iOS and an SVP for watchOS, tvOS and HomePod, basically, a SVP for large screen operating systems and a SVP for embedded operating systems.

    There is going to be a wearables OS, based on iOS, that will run on future headphones too, so it isn’t a small job, and voice is going to be a big part of it. Siri should be folded into whoever is running watchOS, tvOS, etc.

    They’ve gotten so much bigger since Siri launched, but their management org has been the same since 2012. Stuff is falling through the seams.
    Forstall and his deputy (the guy shifting blame on to his team) were in charge of Siri and Apple Maps when they launched. So that’s two ginormous screwups at the same time. If Apple is missing something, it isn’t him. 
    By the sounds of it, it was Williamson that was personally reponsible for the Maps & Siri fiasco, he's the only one that should've been fired.  Otherwise, Eddy Cue should also be fired because since post-Forstall Siri languished for a few years under his leadership.  I think firing Forstall was just an excuse because he was a threat to other senior execs.
    edited March 2018
  • Reply 8 of 30
    canukstormcanukstorm Posts: 2,699member
    tht said:
    Losing Forstall was a huge change, and the management realignment that followed hasn’t fully recovered from it while Apple expanded to having 3 more platforms (watchOS, tvOS, whatever HomePod is using). They need another SVP, at least. Like organize for a SVP for macOS and iOS and an SVP for watchOS, tvOS and HomePod, basically, a SVP for large screen operating systems and a SVP for embedded operating systems.

    There is going to be a wearables OS, based on iOS, that will run on future headphones too, so it isn’t a small job, and voice is going to be a big part of it. Siri should be folded into whoever is running watchOS, tvOS, etc.

    They’ve gotten so much bigger since Siri launched, but their management org has been the same since 2012. Stuff is falling through the seams.
    Agreed. Though I think there should be a separate division for iCloud / Cloud infrastructure and there should be an SVP for that division. Having all operating systems under one umbrella is the right thing..
    cornchip
  • Reply 9 of 30
    knowitallknowitall Posts: 1,648member
    lito_lupena said:
    who knows if siri is actually finally fixed and is just awaiting release in the next wwdc? all this news coming out is just to draw attention and renew awareness of the assistant.
    Siri cannot be fixed because it’s a server solution. 

  • Reply 10 of 30
    williamhwilliamh Posts: 1,033member
    knowitall said:
    lito_lupena said:
    who knows if siri is actually finally fixed and is just awaiting release in the next wwdc? all this news coming out is just to draw attention and renew awareness of the assistant.
    Siri cannot be fixed because it’s a server solution. 

    That seems like a silly thing to say.  That actually makes it sound like something easier to test and fix than if it was all on the phone. After all, it's a matter of improving the server rather than a billion phones of various models and capabilities. 

    Before Apple bought Siri, couldn't it order movie tickets and some other sort of complicated things?  I think it lost a bunch of cool features, in part because Apple was putting it on devices to be used around the world and not just in the US.  They had to adapt to many more languages (and accents) and the varying infrastructure around the world for doing things through an automated service. Customers around the world expect a pretty consistent experience.  I don't really like having a potentially hobbled service, but I understand.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 11 of 30
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    patchythepirate said:

    I don't care who is to blame or how siri compares to the competition. I just want siri not to be a piece of shit, which doesn't seem like a lot to ask after 6-7 years.

    I love Apple, to an almost irrational degree, but I'm glad all this is coming out, and I think Apple, sadly, deserves every bit of negativity related to this issue.

    It's amazing how (apparently) in denial Apple has been about siri's inadequacies. It's always hard to come up with examples of siri's failings because each one in itself is relatively insignificant, and once siri messes up you don't try that thing again, so it's very hard to remember specific examples. But there's so many issues, even BASIC things..
    -messaging someone is pretty much useless, if you pause for half a second to think about your next word that bitch siri chimes in, "ready to send?", with no way to redo or edit.
    -even dictating a phone number doesn't work a lot of the time; me: "call 345-67 (pause for half a second to think of rest of number)", then siri butts in: "calling 34567". That is not a complicated task. That's just fucking stupidity/laziness on the part of the siri team.
    -sometimes the dictation to siri will be correct, which you can read on the screen, then siri's response will have almost nothing to do with what was dictated on screen. How does that make any sense?
    -siri can't do more than one task at a time. so frustrating: "hey siri, I'm home.. hey siri..turn my livinng room lights white..hey siri, turn my living room lights to 100 percent..hey siri..."
    -I tried using siri to get an uber (not when they were having issues), seemed like a super basic, easy way to try out the new siri skills, got "I'm sorry, I can't do that right now"
    -anytime I try to so something that requires the phone to unlock, when I unlock the phone as notified, the siri query has been completely dropped and doesn't carry over. Seems like a pretty fucking simple thing to be able do to after 6 years.
    -siri is supposed to be good at music, right? Especially with home pod. I'm just trying to casually use homepod (absolutely love the hardware, as usual), not beta test it, yet I run into problems all the time:
    ---As I mentioned in a recent post, siri had no fucking clue what I was talking about when referring to an album "Anjunadeep 07" if I interjected the word "volume" or "number" in between "anjunadeep" and "seven". Again, stupid to need to have only one, exact phrasing.
    ---if siri doesn't understand what you're trying to play, it will guess, and start playing something instead of asking for clarification, including playing things that are not eve fucking close to what I was trying to play.
    ---can't start playlists from a specific track, must start only from the beginning
    ---can't find things that are clearly on Apple music and which are also downloaded to my phone
    ---I even had problems saying "play my new music mix" "play playlist new music" siri kept fucking up (and no, I don't have an alternative, personal playlist titled "new music"). It works now for whatever reason, but that should never have been an issue.
    ---has a lot of difficulty recognizing anything that's not in perfect English (which is a huge fraction of bands/songs/albums etc), compounded by siri's wild guessing with no attempt at clarification, .
    ---other things that slip my mind right now...

    I'm sure a bunch of other examples will pop into my head as soon as I hit "post comment" on this post.

    I've never been bothered, at all, by a lack of features from siri. I just want siri to do what siri was supposed to do from day one, and do it at least somewhat decently.
    At this point, I think Siri can only be "fixed" by replacing it with IBM's Watson.
    anantksundarampatchythepirate
  • Reply 12 of 30
    thttht Posts: 5,437member
    At some point, I would like the voice interface to live on the device. Maybe there was a reason to make the round trip to the server 7 years ago, but at some point in time, there will be enough computational power and storage to do it on device. The current SoC performance is really close to do most of Siri.

    Phones could do basic voice interaction like dialing a phone number or start a timer 8 years ago or more. Really don’t see why the vast majority of Siri interaction can’t be on device. It can pull from the Internet for information it may not have on device, but all the voice processing should be on device to minimize latency. 
    cornchip
  • Reply 13 of 30
    gregg thurmangregg thurman Posts: 456member
    Rayz2016 said:

    Forstall and his deputy (the guy shifting blame on to his team) were in charge of Siri and Apple Maps when they launched. So that’s two ginormous screwups at the same time. If Apple is missing something, it isn’t him. 
    All problems with SIRI can be traced back to Forestall.  SVP of Technologies Bob Mansfield retired early patly due to his interactions with Forestall.  It was after that that Apple gave Forestall permission to seek his fortune elsewhere (fired him).  Forestall hasn't been able to secure meaningful employment work since then.  Mansfield came back to Apple after Forestall was given his freedom.

    SIRI was touted as being a complete product ready for the big time when Apple bought it.  It worked fine until it came under load.  It wasn't long after Apple bought SIRI that Dag Kittlaus (CEO and co-founder of SIRI) left Apple under a cloud.  He was soon joined by others of the original SIRI team, who then founded a new voice assistant company.  Samsung bought that company and branded its voice assistant "Bixby".  "Bixby" is a piece of shit, not even as far along as today's SIRI.

    I think that says a lot about Dag & Co., and to Scott Forestall who was in charge of SIRI.  Apple has tons on its very large new product plate, unlike Google and Amazon.  I can imagine that Apple has prioritized SIRI development to match customer need.  Now, with Home Pod that need is going to grow exponentially.

    BTW, today I wanted to skip a song on my Home Pod which is located in the basement family room.  I was upstairs in the kitchen (a turn away from the basement stairwell) when I told SIRI to skip the song.  Worked perfectly.  Also, while watching TV this afternoon, a commercial for HomePod came on.  The depressed dancer asked SIRI to play "something she liked".  All of a sudden my HomePod started playing my favorite tunes.  It took me a moment to figure out why there were two sound tracks playing at the same time.  Once I figured out what had happened I told SIRI to stop, and she did.

    I've got to change security settings or something.
  • Reply 14 of 30
    hammeroftruthhammeroftruth Posts: 1,309member
    canukstorm said:
    Rayz2016 said:
    tht said:
    Losing Forstall was a huge change, and the management realignment that followed hasn’t fully recovered from it while Apple expanded to having 3 more platforms (watchOS, tvOS, whatever HomePod is using). They need another SVP, at least. Like organize for a SVP for macOS and iOS and an SVP for watchOS, tvOS and HomePod, basically, a SVP for large screen operating systems and a SVP for embedded operating systems.

    There is going to be a wearables OS, based on iOS, that will run on future headphones too, so it isn’t a small job, and voice is going to be a big part of it. Siri should be folded into whoever is running watchOS, tvOS, etc.

    They’ve gotten so much bigger since Siri launched, but their management org has been the same since 2012. Stuff is falling through the seams.
    Forstall and his deputy (the guy shifting blame on to his team) were in charge of Siri and Apple Maps when they launched. So that’s two ginormous screwups at the same time. If Apple is missing something, it isn’t him. 
    By the sounds of it, it was Williamson that was personally reponsible for the Maps & Siri fiasco, he's the only one that should've been fired.  Otherwise, Eddy Cue should also be fired because since post-Forstall Siri languished for a few years under his leadership.  I think firing Forstall was just an excuse because he was a threat to other senior execs.
    I totally agree!!  Forestall was a long time employee of Jobs. To do that he had to execute. There's no loss in the irony on how fast Apple got rid of him post Jobs. 

    People like to blame him for Maps and Siri. What they don't realize is that Maps was cobbled together from resources Apple purchased and tried to cram together. 
    Siri wasn't initially designed to do what Apple wanted it to do and from what it looks like all of the talent left Apple. Apple had to partner with Nuance to help develop Siri further. Now it's dumber than it used to be and doesn't have the sense of humor it initially did.

    If if all of this is Forestall's fault, then why have both apps languished all this time?  They should have gotten much much better. Maps still takes you on a wild route sometimes when it shouldn't. Even after having Apple employees submit corrections by making their own app to do so there are still a lot of errors with landmarks that are placed in the wrong spot.  Siri is buggier than it used to be. It lags when you haven't used it in awhile and sometimes it's faster to do things manually then ask Siri to do them (control HomeKit devices, make web queries, etc.).  

    It's not that Apple doesn't have the money to fix all of this. I just think they don't think it's a priority. They act like the consumer would like animated emojis over an improved OS. 

    Btw did the person or team who decided to throttle the CPU speed on phones with old batteries get fired? I doubt it. Look how much that has cost Apple.

    Forestall wasn't the problem.  

    patchythepirate
  • Reply 15 of 30
    chasmchasm Posts: 3,291member
    I use Siri at least a few times each day. In my use case, it works perfectly all the time. I use it to set reminders and calendar events, check weather and what movies are playing, message people, set timers, and control iTunes among other things. Always works. To be fair, I don't ask it questions like "what was the name of General Cornwallis' mother?" and perhaps it would perform poorly if I did, but I don't use Siri to cheat at trivia contests so I'll never really know.

    Once in a great while my watch will say it can't comply with my request, but then I use it on the iPhone and its fine. Likewise, Maps has never, ever gotten me lost or let me down in what I would call "typical" use (though I should mention I live in and mostly travel to big cities, so this may not be as surprising as it would be in, say, rural Latvia).

    The reality of the matter is that Siri is likely to always be the most limited of the major voice assistants, and this is entirely due to Apple's decision not to collect and sell massive amounts of data on you, and to be more secure, local, and private than the others. This really does throw up obstacles that the other services don't have to deal with or work around.

    My biggest complaint with Siri generally is how long it has taken for transit directions to roll out, and a lack of Street View-like tech. Transit is (for the places I visit) finally in place, but having ground-level photos of businesses would be a plus. I expect that is coming based on evidence AI has reported on in the past, but on the whole Siri has met my modest needs very nicely, and I'm glad it is on my devices.
    edited March 2018
  • Reply 16 of 30
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    canukstorm said:
    Rayz2016 said:
    tht said:
    Losing Forstall was a huge change, and the management realignment that followed hasn’t fully recovered from it while Apple expanded to having 3 more platforms (watchOS, tvOS, whatever HomePod is using). They need another SVP, at least. Like organize for a SVP for macOS and iOS and an SVP for watchOS, tvOS and HomePod, basically, a SVP for large screen operating systems and a SVP for embedded operating systems.

    There is going to be a wearables OS, based on iOS, that will run on future headphones too, so it isn’t a small job, and voice is going to be a big part of it. Siri should be folded into whoever is running watchOS, tvOS, etc.

    They’ve gotten so much bigger since Siri launched, but their management org has been the same since 2012. Stuff is falling through the seams.
    Forstall and his deputy (the guy shifting blame on to his team) were in charge of Siri and Apple Maps when they launched. So that’s two ginormous screwups at the same time. If Apple is missing something, it isn’t him. 
    By the sounds of it, it was Williamson that was personally reponsible for the Maps & Siri fiasco, he's the only one that should've been fired.  Otherwise, Eddy Cue should also be fired because since post-Forstall Siri languished for a few years under his leadership.  I think firing Forstall was just an excuse because he was a threat to other senior execs.
    Forstall put him in charge so that Forstall himself could handle the Apple Maps launch. Forstall screwed the Apple Maps launch and Williamson botched the Siri launch. So Forstall is essentially responsible for messing up his own project, and appointing the guy who messed up the other one. 

    I think Forstall was fired because he lied to Cook when he said Maps was ready to launch, refused to apologise (along with Cook) for the screwup, and was more interested in building his own power fortress than playing for the team. 

    The article shows hows that this division was in pretty bad shape under his leadership. Cue has managed to get a few new components  integrated, but he’s a Services bod. Siri needs a software development expert to lead it, which is why they (belatedly) put Federighi in charge. 
    patchythepiratecanukstorm
  • Reply 17 of 30
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    chasm said:
    I use Siri at least a few times each day. In my use case, it works perfectly all the time. I use it to set reminders and calendar events, check weather and what movies are playing, message people, set timers, and control iTunes among other things. Always works. To be fair, I don't ask it questions like "what was the name of General Cornwallis' mother?" and perhaps it would perform poorly if I did, but I don't use Siri to cheat at trivia contests so I'll never really know.

    Once in a great while my watch will say it can't comply with my request, but then I use it on the iPhone and its fine. Likewise, Maps has never, ever gotten me lost or let me down in what I would call "typical" use (though I should mention I live in and mostly travel to big cities, so this may not be as surprising as it would be in, say, rural Latvia).

    The reality of the matter is that Siri is likely to always be the most limited of the major voice assistants, and this is entirely due to Apple's decision not to collect and sell massive amounts of data on you, and to be more secure, local, and private than the others. This really does throw up obstacles that the other services don't have to deal with or work around.

    My biggest complaint with Siri generally is how long it has taken for transit directions to roll out, and a lack of Street View-like tech. Transit is (for the places I visit) finally in place, but having ground-level photos of businesses would be a plus. I expect that is coming based on evidence AI has reported on in the past, but on the whole Siri has met my modest needs very nicely, and I'm glad it is on my devices.

    Agreed, and while Apple's privacy stance is admirable, I'm not sure it's practical. They can collect the data, but they're not Google; they're not automatically obliged to sell it to make money. They can just use it to make the service more useful and personal across devices.

    And it did actually find the name of General Cornwallis's mother on a wikipedia page.
  • Reply 18 of 30
    anantksundaramanantksundaram Posts: 20,404member
    tht said:
    Losing Forstall was a huge change, and the management realignment that followed hasn’t fully recovered from it while Apple expanded to having 3 more platforms (watchOS, tvOS, whatever HomePod is using). They need another SVP, at least. Like organize for a SVP for macOS and iOS and an SVP for watchOS, tvOS and HomePod, basically, a SVP for large screen operating systems and a SVP for embedded operating systems.

    There is going to be a wearables OS, based on iOS, that will run on future headphones too, so it isn’t a small job, and voice is going to be a big part of it. Siri should be folded into whoever is running watchOS, tvOS, etc.

    They’ve gotten so much bigger since Siri launched, but their management org has been the same since 2012. Stuff is falling through the seams.
    Apple’s software and services need a significant management restructuring and rehaul. 

    Couldn’t agree more with your comment on Apple having grown too big and complex for its traditional structure. 
  • Reply 19 of 30
    anantksundaramanantksundaram Posts: 20,404member
    SpamSandwich said:
    patchythepirate said:

    I don't care who is to blame or how siri compares to the competition. I just want siri not to be a piece of shit, which doesn't seem like a lot to ask after 6-7 years.

    I love Apple, to an almost irrational degree, but I'm glad all this is coming out, and I think Apple, sadly, deserves every bit of negativity related to this issue.

    It's amazing how (apparently) in denial Apple has been about siri's inadequacies. It's always hard to come up with examples of siri's failings because each one in itself is relatively insignificant, and once siri messes up you don't try that thing again, so it's very hard to remember specific examples. But there's so many issues, even BASIC things..
    -messaging someone is pretty much useless, if you pause for half a second to think about your next word that bitch siri chimes in, "ready to send?", with no way to redo or edit.
    -even dictating a phone number doesn't work a lot of the time; me: "call 345-67 (pause for half a second to think of rest of number)", then siri butts in: "calling 34567". That is not a complicated task. That's just fucking stupidity/laziness on the part of the siri team.
    -sometimes the dictation to siri will be correct, which you can read on the screen, then siri's response will have almost nothing to do with what was dictated on screen. How does that make any sense?
    -siri can't do more than one task at a time. so frustrating: "hey siri, I'm home.. hey siri..turn my livinng room lights white..hey siri, turn my living room lights to 100 percent..hey siri..."
    -I tried using siri to get an uber (not when they were having issues), seemed like a super basic, easy way to try out the new siri skills, got "I'm sorry, I can't do that right now"
    -anytime I try to so something that requires the phone to unlock, when I unlock the phone as notified, the siri query has been completely dropped and doesn't carry over. Seems like a pretty fucking simple thing to be able do to after 6 years.
    -siri is supposed to be good at music, right? Especially with home pod. I'm just trying to casually use homepod (absolutely love the hardware, as usual), not beta test it, yet I run into problems all the time:
    ---As I mentioned in a recent post, siri had no fucking clue what I was talking about when referring to an album "Anjunadeep 07" if I interjected the word "volume" or "number" in between "anjunadeep" and "seven". Again, stupid to need to have only one, exact phrasing.
    ---if siri doesn't understand what you're trying to play, it will guess, and start playing something instead of asking for clarification, including playing things that are not eve fucking close to what I was trying to play.
    ---can't start playlists from a specific track, must start only from the beginning
    ---can't find things that are clearly on Apple music and which are also downloaded to my phone
    ---I even had problems saying "play my new music mix" "play playlist new music" siri kept fucking up (and no, I don't have an alternative, personal playlist titled "new music"). It works now for whatever reason, but that should never have been an issue.
    ---has a lot of difficulty recognizing anything that's not in perfect English (which is a huge fraction of bands/songs/albums etc), compounded by siri's wild guessing with no attempt at clarification, .
    ---other things that slip my mind right now...

    I'm sure a bunch of other examples will pop into my head as soon as I hit "post comment" on this post.

    I've never been bothered, at all, by a lack of features from siri. I just want siri to do what siri was supposed to do from day one, and do it at least somewhat decently.
    At this point, I think Siri can only be "fixed" by replacing it with IBM's Watson.
    ^^ 
  • Reply 20 of 30
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,356member
    Lack of scalability is an architectural weakness. As far as switching to IBM Watson ... I know Watson does great demo and is an amazing show pony, but has IBM really demonstrated Watson performing at the scale and immediacy required to support Apple's massive connected customer base?

    In previous discussions about Apple's supposed advances in "services" I've always questioned whether Apple is even viewing services in the same light that Google, Microsoft, and Amazon view services. I think the answer is "no" and that Apple is behind the curve in this area. Even Steve Jobs characterized Apple as a software and device business. Not so much about services. Amazon has a very stout services infrastructure in place which may explain why Alexa currently has a leg up on Siri. Also keep in mind that when we're talking about scale on the magnitude that Apple and Amazon must support, what seem like tiny fractional improvements in performance between two competing services translates into huge differences on the service consumer side.  
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