patchythepirate

Apple, please fix this. The frustration of Siri not being able to work even for simple, basic functions is a slap in the face to everyone that's locked in (mostly very happily, even enthusiastically) to the Apple ecosystem.

StrangeDays said:

patchythepirate said:

Apparently it’s not popular to criticize Cue, so I guess I’ll get flamed for this, but how many signs do there need to be that something needs to change?

-Maps: bumbled, saved by other execs taking over (per Apple sanctioned article)
-app store: bumbled, save by another exec taking over (common knowledge)
-Siri: multiple year lead squandered, now only just starting to be reliable after 7 years in development, thank god; although, still, if you pause for half a second, or say one “um”,
youre fucked and have to start over. And Siri is now being overseen by Federighi. 
-no comprehensive content deal for tv (perhaps flip flops and a Hawaiian shirt aren’t the best way to be taken seriously)
-Apple Music with a relatively meager rollout despite being the default media app and working with Siri. 
-Apple Music app: Apple’s slam dunk, golden key into social/media/culture is a socially crippled app with almost no ability to share or express yourself (the cornerstone of any popular social app). All you can do is share a playlist, after 3 years of development? Unbelievable. I use and enjoy Apple Music on a daily basis despite this. Also, the New Music playlists are way too hit or miss.
-carpool karaoke and planet of the apps? Weren’t they supposed to get big releases in April? Then pushed back to late summer. They don’t seem to be too successful. 
-...

Apple’s hardware, core software, and retail are all in a league of their own, phenomenal. But there’s a certain area of Apple that isn’t even close to the standard set by those three areas. As an Apple fan, who is a completely immersed Apple user, it’s fristrating to see the obvious gaps. 

Again, you're referring to angles you've only heard about as rumor or read about. Ex: the supposed hawaiian shirt scandal. You have absolutely no idea what is truth, what is exaggeration, what is accurate, etc etc. Ex: this is the first I've heard Cue was responsible for Maps, previously it was said Forstall was responsible and it was why he resigned. Etc... We simply do not, and cannot know. Only those working on this stuff know. 

Let me ask you this -- if you sucked at your job, do you think your boss would keep you around and give you insanely huge bonuses? Would his bosses? If not....why then do you think Cook and the board are doing exactly that?

Not rumors, verifiable facts. I don't know why you keep trying to use the 'rumors' defense.

Here's Eddie Cue, from a Fast Company article from 8/2016:
"..we kind of let the team we put in charge of it [Maps] go off on their own. Now that you understand the complexity of Maps, you realize that it was a relatively small team, and we kind of isolated them in their own little world. We completely underestimated the complexity of the product. If you think of Maps, it seems like it’s not that hard. All the roads are known, come on! All the restaurants are known. There’s Yelp and Open Table; they have all the addresses. Mail gets delivered; UPS has all the addresses. The mail arrives. FedEx arrives. You know, how hard is this? That was underestimating."

My other points are verifiable facts, and obvious to even casual observers. And extremely frustrating as an Apple fan and user.

If you want to nitpick, the one thing that could be considered a rumor is the the Hawaiian shirt thing, but I don't think anybody doesn't believe that's true, especially when Cue is flipping off and screaming at celebrities court-side in his sandals.

Siri has been a source of endless frustration for me, without the promised context, learning, or the ability to do even the most basic things if you go off script even slightly, which is ridiculous.

That said, I have actually been noticing ways that siri has been learning in the past several months. Some of the same questions that siri got wrong before, she is getting right now. Also, I've been noticing that Siri handles queries very well from multiple devices. Even if I'm trying to talk to my watch, if my iPad is nearby, the iPad will pick up the querry, as it apparently (obviously) has better microphones.

One of my main peves rn is that siri can't handle multiple querries at once. It gets a bit tiring; for example:

hey siri, turn my living room lights blue
  pause
hey siri, turn my living room lights to 50 percent
  pause
hey siri, turn my kitchen lights violet
  pause
hey siri, turn my kitchen lights to 30 percent

This is a typical routine for me that I think could/should be made much simpler by being able to combine those commands into a single sentence.

I hope Apple is ready to make a big jump soon to make up for the HUGE lead that they seem to have mostly squandered (performance wise).

Also, I can't wait to get a Home Pod.

gmgravytrain said:

The device does seem somewhat vulnerable to theft but I suppose there's no way around that besides putting it behind some clear plexiglass mount with only an opening for the button and audio. It's so annoying you have to protect everything from fear of being stolen. I remember back in the 50's and 60's when I was growing up and we could leave our houses unlocked and possessions in the yard and no one ever touched them.  Neighbors were always on the lookout for one another. This was in the suburbs of NYC.

 Now I need to worry about getting some high-tech doorbell stolen off its mounts. Now my mail person leaves Amazon packages on the stoop. At least she rings the doorbell when she places them there and I'm usually expecting the packages. Usually, nothing really expensive is left there but there's always a concern that they might be a temptation to theft. Oh, well, it is what it is. So far, I've been fortunate and nothing has gone missing.  I'm trying to decide what type of doorbell/camera system I should get and I'll make some decision soon.

You should stop worrying and get one. The notifications give you peace of mind if you're worried about people coming up to your door, or stealing packages from your door. And usually when packages are left there the delivery person will ring the doorbell, which notifies you wherever you are.

They (Ring) also have a cool My Neighborhood feature where you can upload clips or view other's uploaded clips if you record suspicious activity or something. I just saw some funny video someone posted titled "ZZ Top dropping something in mail slot." Another clip shows a guy going around the nieghborhood looking for unlocked cars.

If Apple could pull this off it would be monumental. This epitomizes why I love Apple (and why I'm politically moderate). Rs and Ds keep ineffectually bickering over the best strategy to deliver health care, meanwhile the system is largely inefficient and corrupt,* which is the primary reason the cost is so high in the first place. Apple may be able to make some very meaningful progress that will save and improve lives, and improve costs as well (reduce evaluation redundancy, improve engagement in preventative care, provide reassurance and thus reduce number of visits, ...).

The systems we have in place right now are beyond terrible. I'm a physician working in one of the largest medical centers in the US, and I can assure you, we have a long way to go:
-There are some information portals (apps) that provide info to patients, but it's usually raw data with poor presentation and no context. They are also silo'd (system from system, and even hospital from hospital). There is typically little, if any, physician coordination with whatever info is provided.
-On my (the physician) side of things, the EMR systems in place look like they were designed and built 15 years ago, are incredibly inefficient to use, and to evaluate information from. I'd say it's a safe bet that 99.9% of physicians are either too busy or too tech illiterate to complain about it.
-Even though there are huge hospital institutions less than a block away from one another, the primary way to deliver patient records is: 1) get signed patient consent, 2) fax pt consent, 3) receive return fax of records (even if it's hundreds of pages, often with multiple duplicate info), 4) wait, 5) scan fax as a generically categorized 'history' file, 5) look at file in EMR. If you're "lucky," and you work at multiple institutions, you maybe able to access remote EMR data for review (if the pt consents, if you have privileges there, and if your crappy dell/it department can even do it), but there's no way to enter the info into the other system. I currently work with 3 completely separate EMR systems (they're not even the biggest system, which is EPIC), and I also use microsoft word and paper charts in two other smaller clinics.

What Apple is trying to do is not a simple task. Aside from the legal issues, there should be some selectivity in what gets shared. *A lot* of people (maybe even most of us?) are their own worst enemies, and if a physician is afraid to accurately document what is occurring (due to fear that the patient will get upset and: complain, sue, report, disengage from needed care), that can present problems (compromise treatment, legal liability, reduce the value of the information to other providers) (FYI: this is already an issue, and a lot of 'reading between the lines' is already par for the course). It seems like the best way to address this is to provide the raw info, but not the full text of the physician notes (although still available through formal records request, as it is currently), and instead provide a succinct visit summary and treatment plan (which can be facilitated by providing an AI-produced summary that the physician and or aide can edit where appropriate).

*The pharmaceutical and medical device industries are the most prominent examples (e.g. an iPad is a more effective communication tool for an Autistic person than a $6k dedicated, single use case tablet).