k2kw

gatorguy said:

sog35 said:

gatorguy said:

randominternetperson said:

gatorguy said:

StrangeDays said:

phone-ui-guy said:

If you live in a hurricane prone area, you should have a hand crank emergency weather radio. How would people in Puerto Rico be powering their iPhones to use as radios when they are mostly without any power anyway? These little radios can be had for like $20 now and they have flashlights, radios, can even crank to charge your smart phone. I guess Apple should also make a crank accessory? Pai is such an idiot.

Agreed. I live in a hurricane prone area and have gone thru some. Cell phone is useless when the power is out for days on end. Hand crank radio worked perfectly. I’d rather save the limited phone power for texts, assuming towers online. 

I'm sure you figured out you can charge your phone from your vehicle.

If only vehicles included radios. /s

I don't think you'll be walking out to your vehicle in blasting rain when tree branches, fence pieces and yard chairs are flying past pushed by 100MPH winds. At least I would assume you're wiser than that.

Dead of night, no porchlights, no streetlights, no moonlight, the only light a fleeting one when a transformer explodes. You can hear the wind howl, the trees cracking, unknown things hitting your home while you wait and pray that it's not accompanied by tornadoes which are far more likely to rip your roof off than the hurricane. If you've lost all your normal connections to the outside world whether by accident or ignorance that FM chip in your phone could be your best friend for a few hours. 

Again: Why didn't you have the FM crank radio with you THE NIGHT BEFORE?

And don't tell me they were sold out.  You should have purchased the FM radio months if not years ago. You live in a high risk Hurricane area.  That's your fault for not being prepared, not Apple.

This is like blaming Apple that the iPhone does not have a smoke alarm and your house caught on fire but you didn't install smoke alarms.

I WAS prepared. Well prepared since this was my 5th hurricane. One of my young neighbors was not as he had never experienced a hurricane before. And yes his wife was scared to death when the house went black and phones and internet went out. They were one of the first neighbors I checked on along with two very elderly ones on my street after the sun came up and the rains tapered down enough.

Folio said:

Funny how the depth and breadth of 10th anniversary rollout— phenomenal to most of us partisans— so far eludes general appreciation. But that’s just a momentary hiccup, so I hope.

Appreciate the insight on the processors. Look forward to a series: AI on AI. Perhaps also consider initiating a quarterly comparison: Sets of questions and answers to Siri, Alexa, Google Asst, Cortana, Bixby.

I recently did 2400 mile road trip in California and Arizona. My travel buddy used Galaxy/Verizon/Google and I had iPhone5s/12.9iPadPro on T-Mobile. Verizon coverage noticeably superior outside of cities. Siri did fine, except for glaring misdirection to Sequoia National Park, taking us up by Edison Lake instead, so we missed seeing the gargantuan trees this trip, but at least hiked great lake with mountain air.

Another time I asked Siri driving distance from Tucson to Phoenix. Instead of a simple quick answer, it demanded I turn on location services. Grrrr. In my dream, Siri would have traits like a concierge in a world class hotel and not talk back, let alone be impertinent. Note: I’ve not yet used new Siri.

A recent brokerage report (BAML 31AUG2017 on Google Traffic Acquisition Costs) estimates Google pays Apple $4billion plus each year in TAC fees. That’s US$4,000,000,000 plus to tap each of us in Apple’s ecosystem. Google’s iOS recent assistant app, while it may help Apple retain any users who would otherwise defect to Android for the assistant, likely is a foot in the door to reduce annual TAC payments from Google to Apple.

If Apple makes more Siri experiences superior or near frictionless, with consent tailored to its individual users, then it can not only protect TAC fees but gain more lucrative share in e-commerce from Google, Amazon, etc. Recent internal moves, though late in coming, are encouraging, and HomePod visibility means Siri development can’t languish anymore. Game on.

Bionic chip processing power for AR/VR could be a differentiator for Apple mobile for next few years in buying fitted clothes, shower curtains, sofas, views from/of hotel rooms, maybe even head room in cars or leg room on airline seats. Question is how fast sellers ramp up.

foggyhill said:

Soli said:

foggyhill said:

Mike Wuerthele said:

lkrupp said:

AppleInsider said:

Arguably the best home assistant gets even better with the launch of Amazon's latest Alexa-powered accessory, dubbed the Echo Show, arriving months before Apple's competing HomePod arrives in December. 

Overall, we like the design. It has a mix of modern with a bit of retro that will fit well in most people’s homes. 

Alexa puts Apple's Siri to shame, and really makes a point on how Apple has been lagging behind in this space.

I’ve highlighted just a few gems that out this ‘review’ as a typical Apple hit piece. Other ‘competitors' are briefly mentioned but the negative focus is on Apple alone. The review hits all the talking points. Where did this review come from anyway? Never heard of the person who wrote it.

Max is our video guy. If its a video, he's the one responsible for it, with perhaps some polish by another staffer.

I agree that Alexa is better than Siri as I've been hammering on an Echo for about two months -- but I prefer Apple's stance on data collection. Frankly, I use neither.

There is "better" and better. What doesn't better even mean if for example they're all mostly useless as you seem to imply by not using them.
What criteria are used; voice recognition, ability to be called across all devices, mixed language use, multi-platform use, search, whatever.

Seems a review of those devices should define a use case and then see if the device is good for this use case cause a blanket better makes no sense in this case.

For example, Siri is definititely better in language coverage; for people who need that Alexa is at 0% for them.

Echo/Alexa is better than iPhone/iPad/Siri at hearing your wake word and recording your query without interference and/or being able to discern both what you're saying and the context in which you're saying it. Alexa is better at giving you a vocalized answer. Alexa is faster, or at least feels instant compared to using Siri. Amazon lets you view previous queries and submit them to Amazon if there's an error or other concern with the results through their mobile app and web app, while Apple has nothing to help idealize the service. Alexa allows for switching the wake word (Why? Maybe you have a daughter named Alexi), numerous settings to help optimize the service, buit-in 3rd-party apps, like Spotify, and 10s of thousands of 3rd-party apps they call Skills which currently makes Echo products the best option for a connected, voice-controlled, intelligent home. Alexa can run numerous—perhaps unlimited—timers, while Siri can only run one. Alexa allows a lot more to be altered, like settings, via voice since it's primarily a voice driven product.

Siri has a considerably larger range of language support. Siri can probably answer a large range of questions and possibly some more correct answers for time-based events, like sporting events.

I know you all like to hate on Alexa, but Amazon has done an amazing job in a market segment they invented. Below is a link to to test that Forbes conducted. You could do 24 different questions that would make either device win depending on what you asked and who asked them. Overall it's difficult to test these services because of the HW variances. Once HomePod arrives we'll get better tests because both devices will have an array of far-field microphones and give voice-only replies.

• https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaymcgregor/2017/02/25/amazons-alexa-vs-apples-siri-24-1-winner/#53717691a45f

So basically unscientific crap and feels, good you cleared this up 
you do know I have used it huh
the forbes this is as unscientific as it gets , the fact that's all you got means you don't have much

enzomedici said:

First Al Gore on the board, now Michelle Obama speaking at the WWDC.  For people saying it had nothing to do with politics, I disagree completely. Can you imagine if they had Melania Trump there speaking? No politician or ex-first lady belongs at the WWDC. It is a developer conference.

"Obama discussed her experiences in the White House, including efforts to address childhood obesity, support military veterans and their families, to inspire young people to achieve higher education and global efforts to help girls attend school. She specifically noted that there are still many areas around the world where girls still aren't considered worthy of an education. "

Ok, fine, but zero to do with developing software and nothing that people don't already know. I'm sure she got a nice speaking fee though.