Apple's John Giannandrea talks Apple Silicon, moving from Google to Apple

Posted:
in General Discussion edited August 2020
In a wide-ranging interview, Apple's head of Artificial Intelligence John Giannandrea states that it's "technically wrong" for AI to be processed at data centers instead of on a user's own device.

ohn Giannandrea, Apple's Senior Vice President for Machine Learning and AI Strategy
ohn Giannandrea, Apple's Senior Vice President for Machine Learning and AI Strategy


John Giannandrea, Apple's Senior Vice President for Machine Learning and AI Strategy, has answered critics who say that the company can never succeed in Artificial Intelligence because of its insistence on the privacy of processing on device. He denies that without leveraging mass-collected information in data centers, Apple's Machine Learning must be constrained.

"I understand this perception of bigger models in data centers somehow are more accurate," he told Ars Technica in an interview, "but it's actually wrong. It's actually technically wrong."

"It's better to run the model close to the data, rather than moving the data around," he continued. "And whether that's location data -- like what are you [the user is] doing [such as] exercise data, what's the accelerometer doing in your phone -- it's just better to be close to the source of the data, and so it's also privacy preserving."

As an example of privacy, speed and even practicality, he talked about how cameras can now help you choose when to take a photo. "If you wanted to make that decision on the server, you'd have to send every single frame to the server to make a decision about how to take a photograph," he said.

"That doesn't make any sense, right? So, there are just lots of experiences that you would want to build that are better done at the edge device," he continued.

Siri works on-device as much as possible for speed and privacy
Siri works on-device as much as possible for speed and privacy

Moving from Google to Apple

Giannandrea was Google's head of AI and search until 2018 when he moved to Apple and was put in charge of Siri and Machine Learning.

"When I joined Apple, I was already an iPad user, and I loved the Pencil," he said. "So, I would track down the software teams and I would say, 'Okay, where's the machine learning team that's working on handwriting?'"

There wasn't one, so he created it and says that there is also now practically no part of Apple that isn't engaging with AI and ML. "I find it very easy to attract world-class people to Apple," he said, "because it's becoming increasingly obvious in our products that machine learning is critical to the experiences that we want to build for users."

"I guess the biggest problem I have is that many of our most ambitious products are the ones we can't talk about and so it's a bit of a sales challenge to tell somebody, 'Come and work on the most ambitious thing ever but I can't tell you what it is," he said.

Giannandrea says that he was attracted to Apple, and believes it is the right place to work on these topics, because of this same issue of being focused on experiences. "I think that Apple has always stood for that intersection of creativity and technology," he said.

"And I think that when you're thinking about building smart experiences, having vertical integration, all the way down from the applications, to the frameworks, to the silicon, is really essential," he continues. "I think it's a journey, and I think that this is the future of the computing devices that we have, is that they be smart, and that, that smart[ness] sort of disappear[s]."

Apple Silicon

The next known step for Apple is the announced transition to Apple Silicon, and while Giannandrea unsurprisingly won't directly say what this means to AI, he does say it will have an impact outside Apple.

Apple has begun its two-year transition to Apple Silicon
Apple has begun its two-year transition to Apple Silicon


"We will for the first time have a common platform, a silicon platform that can support what we want to do and what our developers want to do," he says. "That capability will unlock some interesting things that we can think of, but probably more importantly will unlock lots of things for other developers as they go along."

Giannandrea explains that this is specifically because of how Apple is going to be able to leverage the Apple Neural Engine (ANE) works. "It's a multi-year journey because the hardware had not been available to do this at the edge five years ago," he said.

"The ANE design is entirely scalable," he continued. "There's a bigger ANE in an iPad than there is in a phone, than there is in an Apple Watch, but the CoreML API layer for our apps and also for developer apps is basically the same across the entire line of products."

As well as his technology work within Apple, Giannandrea has recently been lobbying European Union officials over their plans to regulate the use and implementation of AI. Separately, Apple is continuing to acquire companies specifically to aid in the development of AI such as Siri.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 22
    hmlongcohmlongco Posts: 533member
    Custom silicon for AI and ML, image processing, video decoding and encoding.... THAT is what is going to differentiate Apple's notebooks and desktops in the years to come.

    I watched a video not too long ago where someone was doing 4K video editing, color grading, and rendering in real-time... on an iPad Pro. And for the most part the silly thing wasn't even breathing hard.

    That's on an A12z that's about two-generations behind in process and performance, and on a device where it's throttled due to battery-life constraints and thermal management. But also where the capability is made possible by doing much of the work in custom silicon.

    I really can't wait to see what comes out of this...
    aderuttertmayRayz2016SpamSandwichmjtomlinflyingdpjdb8167lolliverjony0radarthekat
  • Reply 2 of 22
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    hmlongco said:
    Custom silicon for AI and ML, image processing, video decoding and encoding.... THAT is what is going to differentiate Apple's notebooks and desktops in the years to come.

    I watched a video not too long ago where someone was doing 4K video editing, color grading, and rendering in real-time... on an iPad Pro. And for the most part the silly thing wasn't even breathing hard.

    That's on an A12z that's about two-generations behind in process and performance, and on a device where it's throttled due to battery-life constraints and thermal management. But also where the capability is made possible by doing much of the work in custom silicon.

    I really can't wait to see what comes out of this...
    In a mere ten more years it’ll be shocking how much computing power will be on-device and available to consumers.
    flyingdplolliverjony0radarthekatFileMakerFellerwatto_cobra
  • Reply 3 of 22
    canukstormcanukstorm Posts: 2,695member
    hmlongco said:
    Custom silicon for AI and ML, image processing, video decoding and encoding.... THAT is what is going to differentiate Apple's notebooks and desktops in the years to come.

    I watched a video not too long ago where someone was doing 4K video editing, color grading, and rendering in real-time... on an iPad Pro. And for the most part the silly thing wasn't even breathing hard.

    That's on an A12z that's about two-generations behind in process and performance, and on a device where it's throttled due to battery-life constraints and thermal management. But also where the capability is made possible by doing much of the work in custom silicon.

    I really can't wait to see what comes out of this...
    This is true.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 22
    This article is so important to understanding Apple.  There is so much packed into a few brief paragraphs.

    We hear people complain/predict that Apple doesn't "get" AI and can't succeed because:
    1. No one wants to work at Apple before they are handcuffed by privacy concerns.
    2. Siri sucks and it's never get better because no one cares.
    3. Apple won't be able to compete with Google because of Apple's limited notions about where/how to process the information.

    Here's a world-class talent who chose to leave Google to head up these activities at Apple and he (with apparent sincerity) believes that this is all nonsense and (apparently) is getting stuff done at Apple to address deficiencies he's identifying.

    So next time someone here pulls up some example from 3 years ago about why Apple is going to fail and AI, my reaction is going to be "is that before or after this dude took over" and "is that dude still working at Apple."  Color me optimistic.
    lkrupplolliverjony0StrangeDayspscooter63watto_cobra
  • Reply 5 of 22
    Great, but Siri is still way behind Google's.
    Beats
  • Reply 6 of 22
    Great, but Siri is still way behind Google's.
    True, but Google might get complacent, and now they have a bigger problem with Congress putting them under a microscope about how they monitize customer’s data which is how it generates revenue along with advertising. 

    Apple has been working on improving Siri and maps and it is starting to pay off. You should see some major improvements to both by the end of this year or early next year. 


    watto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 22
    bulk001bulk001 Posts: 764member
    About time! Hope they look to process basic Siri commands on the device. @randominternetperson i just pulled up Siri and it is still bad. But with some of the old guard leaving maybe new hires are getting a chance to bring about some real innovation in areas outside of chip design and recycling old iPhone designs as “new, innovate, the best, thinnest, most powerful and amazing” IPhone 12! Excited to see it get better as despite my griping I really do like the Apple products I have. 
    edited August 2020 watto_cobra
  • Reply 8 of 22
    This article is so important to understanding Apple.  There is so much packed into a few brief paragraphs.

    We hear people complain/predict that Apple doesn't "get" AI and can't succeed because:
    1. No one wants to work at Apple before they are handcuffed by privacy concerns.
    2. Siri sucks and it's never get better because no one cares.
    3. Apple won't be able to compete with Google because of Apple's limited notions about where/how to process the information.

    Here's a world-class talent who chose to leave Google to head up these activities at Apple and he (with apparent sincerity) believes that this is all nonsense and (apparently) is getting stuff done at Apple to address deficiencies he's identifying.

    So next time someone here pulls up some example from 3 years ago about why Apple is going to fail and AI, my reaction is going to be "is that before or after this dude took over" and "is that dude still working at Apple."  Color me optimistic.
    Reading between the lines on why he left Google, I think it was a crisis of conscience, where Apple has, at its core, a fundamental belief that a user's data is part of their being, who they are, and must be protected.  It is an extension of their "personhood," which I also agree with, and must be protected at all costs.

    From what I've read at Google, they also believe the same, however that ends prior to my last clause, and for Google, the last clause would read, "must be exploited for our bottom line."

    For me, the first thing that gets changed on my new iPhones is to change my search engine to DuckDuckGo, and any other Google owned apps are not installed.  By the way, I'm looking for an alternative to Waze.  I love that app, but want something non-Google owned that does the same thing on my CarPlay stereo.

    As for AAPL failing, I'm more worried about their P/E going so high, and their stock split failing to get them to 100.  The way it looks, it's going to be closer to $125, which breaks my heart... (not).
    pscooter63watto_cobra
  • Reply 9 of 22
    DAalsethDAalseth Posts: 2,783member
    Great, but Siri is still way behind Google's.
    Very true. Siri is still badly crippled. I tried four times to get Siri to remind me to do something when I got home. It never did figure out what I was asking. 
    The trouble is that while Siri is the most out front AI everyone sees, there is a lot of AI that Apple does very well, but it's not as obvious. Cameras, facial recognition, translation, there's a lot of routine things that have AI running in the back. We just see that they work better. 
    jony0FileMakerFeller
  • Reply 10 of 22

    bulk001 said:
    About time! Hope they look to process basic Siri commands on the device. @randominternetperson i just pulled up Siri and it is still bad. But with some of the old guard leaving maybe new hires are getting a chance to bring about some real innovation in areas outside of chip design and recycling old iPhone designs as “new, innovate, the best, thinnest, most powerful and amazing” IPhone 12! Excited to see it get better as despite my griping I really do like the Apple products I have. 
    AMEN, brother! (or sister).

    How could Microsoft Voice Command do the processing of who I wanted to call in 2005 on a Windows Mobile Phone with 32MB of RAM, and Siri needs to send my data to some computer so I can call my wife?  All of the information (her contact info, the cell chip) is on the phone, so why does the processing need to go to some computer in North Carolina/Nevada/New Caledonia?

    Something I've never understood.

    Here's how I'd run Siri:
    1.  If the data can be processed on the device, process it on the device.  (i.e. call someone, find the next calendar appointment)
    2.  If data is needed from the web, figure out what is needed from the web, and gather it, then process on the device. (closest pizza restaurant, driving time to next appt.)
    3.  If Siri can't figure out 1 or 2, then let the supercomputer in the cloud figure it out with a randomized token as the user.
    jony0muthuk_vanalingamFileMakerFeller
  • Reply 11 of 22
    larryjwlarryjw Posts: 1,031member
    Great, but Siri is still way behind Google's.
    That may have to do more with where and who is supplying the data to handle Siri queries than the ML/AI side of Siri. Google has had a significant head start pooling data. Like with maps, it's the external data feeds that make or break this kind of service. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 12 of 22
    TomETomE Posts: 172member
    Apple's John Giannandrea is correct.  I am an engineer w MBA without a doubt he is correct.  It is logical.  People from the other side of the fence or window see only their world.  It takes a World Class Player like to be able to set the direction of progress and the future .  He & Apple see it.

    I am not privy to what Apple is doing exactly none of us will really know unless we are working at Apple or under NDA's.  Industrial Espionage is rampant.  Why would Apple tell us everything; they are smart and a smart person only discloses approved information.  Things that are under NDA or inside their labs would blow the minds of people who are not aware of it.  Most would not understand the concepts.  

    Not everyone will buy Apple - they may think it is too far behind.  It is not.  If you control the software & are able to design the chips & hardware , the end product will be amazing.  It is better.  You just want it to work.  Other's work, but not like Apple's.  If you are in the other camps, you may be in the majority, but the majority is the herd.  The herd runs all over the place when someone says "Boo".  

    Apple does not follow the herd, they follow the true leader(s).  It is an honor to work for Apple.  The hours are long, the rewards are great & they are the leader & those with the herd mentality are not at Apple; they are elsewhere. Having less fun beating their brains out.

    Apple is so far ahead in software, hardware, processing in your hand vs cloud processing of data, it would take a major shift for the herds to change their direction(s) & go in a Unified Creative Direction. Instead they go blinding fast over the cliff.  Just a metaphor.

    In 1984, the Apple Macintosh was introduced.  It was fabulous and Archaic by today's standards. Excel did not even exist.  I believe it ran VisiCalc.  We brought our little desktop Macs to work to be able to use MacProject, MacWrite & MacDraw.  The "others" did not have anything like it.  They used command line interfaces to speak with the OS.  Rather archaic don't you think.  Apple had a vision.  Jobs & Woz were creatives.  I cannot say they envisioned all that Apple has become, but their focus improved daily.  They refocused constantly and Apple is what it is today because of Visionaries like Apple had then, have now, & will have in the future.

    Apple has it down. Sure I can tell you what is wrong with some of the apps or hardware, but they keep the details of the vision close to their vest.  When I worked initially for a Major Defense Contractor, I walked into a copy room one night and surprised a person who was photographing with a spy camera and copying the proprietary drawings of another contractor who was ahead and had the contract to supply a system for a major aircraft contract.  This type of thievery goes on today at all levels, Chinese included, and the only way to keep a good secret is to not tell anyone .  Even Apple segregates their workers, but there is a focus to make it the best.

    Others try, but Apple does it.  Sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings.  Being able to Find, See, Accept or Lead has been my life's ambition.  Try to be the best.  We don't always have the luxury of being able to do that.  Some times the trees get in the way when in the Forest of Life.  Being able to change on a dime if needed when it is correct is important.  There is not a lot of difference in gasoline as far as my car is concerned.  It is a commodity item.  Being able to really see the future is important.  I have not always been able to see or admit the future, but if I was right and someone else was wrong, I would admit it either way.  

    I admit Apple's John Giannandrea is correct.  Can you see that he is most likely correct follow a leader ?  There is a supercomputer in our hands, with Apple's Supercomputer Product line, you can touch, hold , own, & use it for creative purposes beyond our wildest dreams.  Distributed Data is the wrong concept.  The days of the Terminal into the Network, or the "Network is the Computer" maybe out of date.  But if you work in that area, you may never see the forest for the trees.  The Network is not really the computer, not for us.  Maybe for you , but not for us and not for Apple's John Giannandrea.

    The Apple Subsidiary, Claris, aka FileMaker, originally Nashoba's Filemaker was far ahead.  I Love that product, but I Loved MacWrite, MacPaint, MacDraw, Visicalc, etc because they let me have a computer that I could afford to buy, own, & use to accomplish what the Naysayers could not do.  You will never know how many times were whipped, beaten, professionally crucified because we chose to not follow the masses. Especially corporate IT - they were the worse.

    Can you see the future ?  I hope so.  Apple is far ahead, will continue to lead, not all will follow the Star, but they have the Focus & the Cash.  Sure they will make a mistake or so, but Naysayers are already doomed to be wrong by having the wrong attitude.
    TomE
    BeatsjeffythequicktmayStrangeDayspscooter63watto_cobra
  • Reply 13 of 22
    BeatsBeats Posts: 3,073member
    TomE said:
    Apple's John Giannandrea is correct.  I am an engineer w MBA without a doubt he is correct.  It is logical.  People from the other side of the fence or window see only their world.  It takes a World Class Player like to be able to set the direction of progress and the future .  He & Apple see it.

    I am not privy to what Apple is doing exactly none of us will really know unless we are working at Apple or under NDA's.  Industrial Espionage is rampant.  Why would Apple tell us everything; they are smart and a smart person only discloses approved information.  Things that are under NDA or inside their labs would blow the minds of people who are not aware of it.  Most would not understand the concepts.  

    Not everyone will buy Apple - they may think it is too far behind.  It is not.  If you control the software & are able to design the chips & hardware , the end product will be amazing.  It is better.  You just want it to work.  Other's work, but not like Apple's.  If you are in the other camps, you may be in the majority, but the majority is the herd.  The herd runs all over the place when someone says "Boo".  

    Apple does not follow the herd, they follow the true leader(s).  It is an honor to work for Apple.  The hours are long, the rewards are great & they are the leader & those with the herd mentality are not at Apple; they are elsewhere. Having less fun beating their brains out.

    Apple is so far ahead in software, hardware, processing in your hand vs cloud processing of data, it would take a major shift for the herds to change their direction(s) & go in a Unified Creative Direction. Instead they go blinding fast over the cliff.  Just a metaphor.

    In 1984, the Apple Macintosh was introduced.  It was fabulous and Archaic by today's standards. Excel did not even exist.  I believe it ran VisiCalc.  We brought our little desktop Macs to work to be able to use MacProject, MacWrite & MacDraw.  The "others" did not have anything like it.  They used command line interfaces to speak with the OS.  Rather archaic don't you think.  Apple had a vision.  Jobs & Woz were creatives.  I cannot say they envisioned all that Apple has become, but their focus improved daily.  They refocused constantly and Apple is what it is today because of Visionaries like Apple had then, have now, & will have in the future.

    Apple has it down. Sure I can tell you what is wrong with some of the apps or hardware, but they keep the details of the vision close to their vest.  When I worked initially for a Major Defense Contractor, I walked into a copy room one night and surprised a person who was photographing with a spy camera and copying the proprietary drawings of another contractor who was ahead and had the contract to supply a system for a major aircraft contract.  This type of thievery goes on today at all levels, Chinese included, and the only way to keep a good secret is to not tell anyone .  Even Apple segregates their workers, but there is a focus to make it the best.

    Others try, but Apple does it.  Sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings.  Being able to Find, See, Accept or Lead has been my life's ambition.  Try to be the best.  We don't always have the luxury of being able to do that.  Some times the trees get in the way when in the Forest of Life.  Being able to change on a dime if needed when it is correct is important.  There is not a lot of difference in gasoline as far as my car is concerned.  It is a commodity item.  Being able to really see the future is important.  I have not always been able to see or admit the future, but if I was right and someone else was wrong, I would admit it either way.  

    I admit Apple's John Giannandrea is correct.  Can you see that he is most likely correct follow a leader ?  There is a supercomputer in our hands, with Apple's Supercomputer Product line, you can touch, hold , own, & use it for creative purposes beyond our wildest dreams.  Distributed Data is the wrong concept.  The days of the Terminal into the Network, or the "Network is the Computer" maybe out of date.  But if you work in that area, you may never see the forest for the trees.  The Network is not really the computer, not for us.  Maybe for you , but not for us and not for Apple's John Giannandrea.

    The Apple Subsidiary, Claris, aka FileMaker, originally Nashoba's Filemaker was far ahead.  I Love that product, but I Loved MacWrite, MacPaint, MacDraw, Visicalc, etc because they let me have a computer that I could afford to buy, own, & use to accomplish what the Naysayers could not do.  You will never know how many times were whipped, beaten, professionally crucified because we chose to not follow the masses. Especially corporate IT - they were the worse.

    Can you see the future ?  I hope so.  Apple is far ahead, will continue to lead, not all will follow the Star, but they have the Focus & the Cash.  Sure they will make a mistake or so, but Naysayers are already doomed to be wrong by having the wrong attitude.
    TomE

    Someone who gets it.

    I cannot stand uncreative people who refuse to use their own working brain. They have become a pet peeve of the worse. I cannot tell you how many times I've told people something was a bad idea at the peak of it's initial hype only for it to die a year later. The funny thing is, the "I told you so" tactic does not work on them because by the time the very idea they were hyped about dies, they no longer care or even remember it as they're on to the next hyped crap.

    And I do not buy into the "Siri sucks" opinion as I've seen statistics that show they all excel at different tasks. Except privacy and security *wink*. It's still a shame Siri is in the same league when the copycats were late to the game. Remember Google saying Siri was a bad idea?
    tmaylolliverjony0rezwitsStrangeDayspscooter63watto_cobrah2p
  • Reply 14 of 22
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,335member
    I understand his take on AI and the benefits of proximity to the source, I.e., where the problem is executing live in real time. However, I would not present it as an either/or argument because not all AI, ML, and predictive analytics is trying to solve the same problem. 

    If you’re trying to help users make realtime decisions that are highly contextual to a specific problem at the point where actions can be taken, you want to have contextually aware AI interacting right there alongside the “live data,” at the well head producing the data. 

    If you want AI supporting decision making from highly aggregated sources across multiple contexts to help identify trends and make predictions, big data types of things, you need to push it up the processing pipeline for further refinement. 

    In fact, I believe AI should be thought of as a continuous process with with feedback and feed forward (prediction) so data would always be moving both ways in general, but for specific contexts and problems a certain degree of local control is possible if the local AI models are properly primed. Not allowing local data and learned behaviors to propagate upstream seems like a lost opportunity. 
    edited August 2020 FileMakerFellerwatto_cobra
  • Reply 15 of 22
    Beats said:
    TomE said:
    Apple's John Giannandrea is correct.  I am an engineer w MBA without a doubt he is correct.  It is logical.  People from the other side of the fence or window see only their world.  It takes a World Class Player like to be able to set the direction of progress and the future .  He & Apple see it.

    I am not privy to what Apple is doing exactly none of us will really know unless we are working at Apple or under NDA's.  Industrial Espionage is rampant.  Why would Apple tell us everything; they are smart and a smart person only discloses approved information.  Things that are under NDA or inside their labs would blow the minds of people who are not aware of it.  Most would not understand the concepts.  

    Not everyone will buy Apple - they may think it is too far behind.  It is not.  If you control the software & are able to design the chips & hardware , the end product will be amazing.  It is better.  You just want it to work.  Other's work, but not like Apple's.  If you are in the other camps, you may be in the majority, but the majority is the herd.  The herd runs all over the place when someone says "Boo".  

    Apple does not follow the herd, they follow the true leader(s).  It is an honor to work for Apple.  The hours are long, the rewards are great & they are the leader & those with the herd mentality are not at Apple; they are elsewhere. Having less fun beating their brains out.

    Apple is so far ahead in software, hardware, processing in your hand vs cloud processing of data, it would take a major shift for the herds to change their direction(s) & go in a Unified Creative Direction. Instead they go blinding fast over the cliff.  Just a metaphor.

    In 1984, the Apple Macintosh was introduced.  It was fabulous and Archaic by today's standards. Excel did not even exist.  I believe it ran VisiCalc.  We brought our little desktop Macs to work to be able to use MacProject, MacWrite & MacDraw.  The "others" did not have anything like it.  They used command line interfaces to speak with the OS.  Rather archaic don't you think.  Apple had a vision.  Jobs & Woz were creatives.  I cannot say they envisioned all that Apple has become, but their focus improved daily.  They refocused constantly and Apple is what it is today because of Visionaries like Apple had then, have now, & will have in the future.

    Apple has it down. Sure I can tell you what is wrong with some of the apps or hardware, but they keep the details of the vision close to their vest.  When I worked initially for a Major Defense Contractor, I walked into a copy room one night and surprised a person who was photographing with a spy camera and copying the proprietary drawings of another contractor who was ahead and had the contract to supply a system for a major aircraft contract.  This type of thievery goes on today at all levels, Chinese included, and the only way to keep a good secret is to not tell anyone .  Even Apple segregates their workers, but there is a focus to make it the best.

    Others try, but Apple does it.  Sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings.  Being able to Find, See, Accept or Lead has been my life's ambition.  Try to be the best.  We don't always have the luxury of being able to do that.  Some times the trees get in the way when in the Forest of Life.  Being able to change on a dime if needed when it is correct is important.  There is not a lot of difference in gasoline as far as my car is concerned.  It is a commodity item.  Being able to really see the future is important.  I have not always been able to see or admit the future, but if I was right and someone else was wrong, I would admit it either way.  

    I admit Apple's John Giannandrea is correct.  Can you see that he is most likely correct follow a leader ?  There is a supercomputer in our hands, with Apple's Supercomputer Product line, you can touch, hold , own, & use it for creative purposes beyond our wildest dreams.  Distributed Data is the wrong concept.  The days of the Terminal into the Network, or the "Network is the Computer" maybe out of date.  But if you work in that area, you may never see the forest for the trees.  The Network is not really the computer, not for us.  Maybe for you , but not for us and not for Apple's John Giannandrea.

    The Apple Subsidiary, Claris, aka FileMaker, originally Nashoba's Filemaker was far ahead.  I Love that product, but I Loved MacWrite, MacPaint, MacDraw, Visicalc, etc because they let me have a computer that I could afford to buy, own, & use to accomplish what the Naysayers could not do.  You will never know how many times were whipped, beaten, professionally crucified because we chose to not follow the masses. Especially corporate IT - they were the worse.

    Can you see the future ?  I hope so.  Apple is far ahead, will continue to lead, not all will follow the Star, but they have the Focus & the Cash.  Sure they will make a mistake or so, but Naysayers are already doomed to be wrong by having the wrong attitude.
    TomE

    Someone who gets it.

    I cannot stand uncreative people who refuse to use their own working brain. They have become a pet peeve of the worse. I cannot tell you how many times I've told people something was a bad idea at the peak of it's initial hype only for it to die a year later. The funny thing is, the "I told you so" tactic does not work on them because by the time the very idea they were hyped about dies, they no longer care or even remember it as they're on to the next hyped crap.

    And I do not buy into the "Siri sucks" opinion as I've seen statistics that show they all excel at different tasks. Except privacy and security *wink*. It's still a shame Siri is in the same league when the copycats were late to the game. Remember Google saying Siri was a bad idea?
    As an engineer, it is a shame to see a person fall in love with their design, and cannot see the flaws in it.
  • Reply 16 of 22
    chasmchasm Posts: 3,274member
    Great, but Siri is still way behind Google's.
    I don't know about that. I'm able to ask Siri to do just about anything I typically need doing (set reminders, set calendars, play this album or radio station, do this metric/US conversion, give me directions to a place, call so-and-so, identify the song that's playing, translate this phrase into another language, and so forth) with no problems. I don't ask it a bunch of random questions very often, so maybe I'm just not seeing its weak areas.

    I will agree that Siri on the AppleTV and even (surprisingly) the HomePod aren't up to the iPhone/iPad standard, but in both cases they are using older processors that can't take advantage of the ML and AI that are being put into present and future chips, which is why I think we'll see a refresh of those products in the not-too-distant future (this year around xmas would be nice, Apple ... hint hint). Some queries still do need precise wording to work. I have to remember to say "play (station) radio" rather than saying "play WPRK" to be sure the request will work. I need to say "play the album [album name] by [band name]" in that order to make sure it doesn't just play the title track of [album]. I have to do similar exact phrasings in some areas with Google to be sure I'm getting the result I want (ironically I find that searches for "Apple" as in fruit generally return Apple as in company results unless I clarify that, as an example).

    That said, Google's Assistant is "better" in two distinct ways: first, because of the vast amount of personal data it collects about you and direct access to its own search engine, it can often anticipate the questions you're likely to ask based on your known interests and thus fetch the data more quickly. That's an area where Apple's privacy policies hobble it a bit, but I think ML/AI advances will reduce that advantage over time. The second area is that Google has a bigger business-directory database with more information (again, because they gather data to resell it), and it is fairly simple to show that Google Assistant can get the phone number of that barbershop you used the last time you were in LA more quickly than Siri can, again do the combo of what they already know about you and their data-gathering from businesses.

    I'm probably the odd one out, but I prefer the occasional mild inconvenience of Siri throwing to the web or misinterpreting my request with privacy and security intact over the convenience of the  "dossier" of my whole life search history and other data Google sucks up to make their search results better. But clearly that's just me.
    lolliverStrangeDayspscooter63watto_cobrarandominternetpersonrezwits
  • Reply 17 of 22
    Everyone else thinks that Cloud Services are better at everything because of their huge data storage size.  You can't fit trillions of bits of data on a personal device.  So, as long as you've got the time to wait, those cloud servers will sift through all that data and give you a perfect answer.  Almost no one likes the way Apple is doing AI and practically everyone claims Siri is the worst voice assistant around.  I don't know if it's true or not, I'm just going by what I hear.  The way I see it, the more a personal assistant knows about you and the things around you, the personal assistant will be more useful to you.  A personal assistant who is kept in the dark will not be very useful.  In that respect, Google and Amazon's voice assistants will always be better than what Apple has to offer.  Besides, almost no one cares about Google and Amazon sucking their personal data for use.  If people cared about such stuff, then Android wouldn't have an 85% mobile market share.  Data-sucking is just fair payment for the service people are getting.  Apple will never be praised for trying to protect user privacy and will always be thrown in with Google and Amazon as a data-sucking tech company whether it does it or not.

    I don't use voice assistants, so I'm not the best person to talk about any of them.  I like typing in questions and that's the way I'll continue to get answers.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 18 of 22
    rezwitsrezwits Posts: 878member
    As an engineer, it is a shame to see a person fall in love with their design, and cannot see the flaws in it.
    I use Siri successfully, and easily over 300+ times a week.  Fails maybe 5 times, a week? (edit changed from 500+ times a weeks to , 300+)

    And as a (de)coder, I see Siri STILL as a 50+ year project, if not a 100+ year project.

    Look at Microsoft, basically have to just outright cancel Cortana.
    Look at Samsung, basically have to just push Bixby, to the side, for Google.

    Apple has been working on Speech Recongintion since 1990, if not earlier.

    I am sorry, but Google's beginnings were simple Wikipedia searches, and just default google searches, in which Apple chose NOT to do in the beginning.

    Alexa was getting seriously dominant, when their "Skills" started being developed.
    Google has Actions.
    And Siri has Shortcuts.

    The true battle is going to be with universal language compatability.
    Here is a somewhat current report, where Alexa is kinda behind...

    https://www.globalme.net/blog/language-support-voice-assistants-compared/

    Laters...
    edited August 2020 watto_cobra
  • Reply 19 of 22
    StrangeDaysStrangeDays Posts: 12,834member
    Beats said:
    TomE said:
    Apple's John Giannandrea is correct.  I am an engineer w MBA without a doubt he is correct.  It is logical.  People from the other side of the fence or window see only their world.  It takes a World Class Player like to be able to set the direction of progress and the future .  He & Apple see it.

    I am not privy to what Apple is doing exactly none of us will really know unless we are working at Apple or under NDA's.  Industrial Espionage is rampant.  Why would Apple tell us everything; they are smart and a smart person only discloses approved information.  Things that are under NDA or inside their labs would blow the minds of people who are not aware of it.  Most would not understand the concepts.  

    Not everyone will buy Apple - they may think it is too far behind.  It is not.  If you control the software & are able to design the chips & hardware , the end product will be amazing.  It is better.  You just want it to work.  Other's work, but not like Apple's.  If you are in the other camps, you may be in the majority, but the majority is the herd.  The herd runs all over the place when someone says "Boo".  

    Apple does not follow the herd, they follow the true leader(s).  It is an honor to work for Apple.  The hours are long, the rewards are great & they are the leader & those with the herd mentality are not at Apple; they are elsewhere. Having less fun beating their brains out.

    Apple is so far ahead in software, hardware, processing in your hand vs cloud processing of data, it would take a major shift for the herds to change their direction(s) & go in a Unified Creative Direction. Instead they go blinding fast over the cliff.  Just a metaphor.

    In 1984, the Apple Macintosh was introduced.  It was fabulous and Archaic by today's standards. Excel did not even exist.  I believe it ran VisiCalc.  We brought our little desktop Macs to work to be able to use MacProject, MacWrite & MacDraw.  The "others" did not have anything like it.  They used command line interfaces to speak with the OS.  Rather archaic don't you think.  Apple had a vision.  Jobs & Woz were creatives.  I cannot say they envisioned all that Apple has become, but their focus improved daily.  They refocused constantly and Apple is what it is today because of Visionaries like Apple had then, have now, & will have in the future.

    Apple has it down. Sure I can tell you what is wrong with some of the apps or hardware, but they keep the details of the vision close to their vest.  When I worked initially for a Major Defense Contractor, I walked into a copy room one night and surprised a person who was photographing with a spy camera and copying the proprietary drawings of another contractor who was ahead and had the contract to supply a system for a major aircraft contract.  This type of thievery goes on today at all levels, Chinese included, and the only way to keep a good secret is to not tell anyone .  Even Apple segregates their workers, but there is a focus to make it the best.

    Others try, but Apple does it.  Sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings.  Being able to Find, See, Accept or Lead has been my life's ambition.  Try to be the best.  We don't always have the luxury of being able to do that.  Some times the trees get in the way when in the Forest of Life.  Being able to change on a dime if needed when it is correct is important.  There is not a lot of difference in gasoline as far as my car is concerned.  It is a commodity item.  Being able to really see the future is important.  I have not always been able to see or admit the future, but if I was right and someone else was wrong, I would admit it either way.  

    I admit Apple's John Giannandrea is correct.  Can you see that he is most likely correct follow a leader ?  There is a supercomputer in our hands, with Apple's Supercomputer Product line, you can touch, hold , own, & use it for creative purposes beyond our wildest dreams.  Distributed Data is the wrong concept.  The days of the Terminal into the Network, or the "Network is the Computer" maybe out of date.  But if you work in that area, you may never see the forest for the trees.  The Network is not really the computer, not for us.  Maybe for you , but not for us and not for Apple's John Giannandrea.

    The Apple Subsidiary, Claris, aka FileMaker, originally Nashoba's Filemaker was far ahead.  I Love that product, but I Loved MacWrite, MacPaint, MacDraw, Visicalc, etc because they let me have a computer that I could afford to buy, own, & use to accomplish what the Naysayers could not do.  You will never know how many times were whipped, beaten, professionally crucified because we chose to not follow the masses. Especially corporate IT - they were the worse.

    Can you see the future ?  I hope so.  Apple is far ahead, will continue to lead, not all will follow the Star, but they have the Focus & the Cash.  Sure they will make a mistake or so, but Naysayers are already doomed to be wrong by having the wrong attitude.
    TomE

    And I do not buy into the "Siri sucks" opinion as I've seen statistics that show they all excel at different tasks. Except privacy and security *wink*. It's still a shame Siri is in the same league when the copycats were late to the game. Remember Google saying Siri was a bad idea?
    Agreed. Every shoot-out article I've seen has them each excelling and failing at different things. They are all primitive. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 20 of 22
    StrangeDaysStrangeDays Posts: 12,834member
    TomE said:
    Apple has it down. Sure I can tell you what is wrong with some of the apps or hardware, but they keep the details of the vision close to their vest.  When I worked initially for a Major Defense Contractor, I walked into a copy room one night and surprised a person who was photographing with a spy camera and copying the proprietary drawings of another contractor who was ahead and had the contract to supply a system for a major aircraft contract.  This type of thievery goes on today at all levels, Chinese included, and the only way to keep a good secret is to not tell anyone .  Even Apple segregates their workers, but there is a focus to make it the best.
    Wow. What did you do?
    watto_cobra
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