Latko

Half a year ago, there was this rumor about Siri getting re-built from the ground up. Well, we should not have to wait too long and it should be seen if Vocal-IQ and this tech can be integrated in that effort.

martenf said:

I am not knowledgeable in IP laws etc but to me the sensible approach would be that if a company or someone buys patents then they can only be used as a basis for litigation if these patents are actually being used by the owner or the owner has clear plans on how they will be used within a reasonable period of time.
This topic on patent trolls keeps arising and it is absurd that this has not been resolved yet.
Of course, in the absence of laws as I indicated, perhaps another approach is to keep these trolls in court until they have no further resources left to fight the case. This course of action should only be available when the entity is non practicing in relation to the patents.

Agree, but that would make the major part of (sleeping) Apple patents worthless too...

These apss shoudln’t have been approved in the first place. The Glassbox mechanism not being detected during the AppStore approval process implies that process is almost worthless.
”What is on your iPhone DOES NOT stay on your iPhone”

fred stein said:

Siri, like Apple's Maps, was mis-managed by Forstall. Then handed over to Eddie Cue, who had no ability in AI. Finally, Craig got the mandate. It seems Craig realized that AI / NLP is THE future and needed a fully dedicated expert. My guess he told Tim to hire the best and give him carte blanche, C-level authority. I'm total FanBoy, but Siri is terrible. It makes Lily Tomlin as Ernestine look like a genius. "Is this the party to whom I'm speaking" - Showing my age.....

That’s a gross simplification - if not falsification. The original Siri developers never got along with Apple after it bought the product, as Apple didn’t want to implement the modular structure they considered necessary for scaled development. Apple then made its own decisions that weren’t very wise from a developer perspective (but might or might not have been preferable for other reasons such as security) In the end, the devs moved out. Forstall was intelligent enough to understand the essence of software development. I don’t think he was to blame. Actually, he never was - also in the Maps drama he had the right vision but didn’t get it adopted in the organisation. Anyway, handing over responsibilities to Cue is....what should I say...the fastest way to elevate the problematic to the desastrous ?

applejakes said:

focher said:

applejakes said:

Apple only spent $8.2 billion this quarter on buy backs after spending an average of $21 billion the last 3 quarters.  Could they be stockpiling money for a purchase?  If not it was a gross misuse of cash to not throw a huge amount at buy backs this quarter.  Something along the lines of $25+ billion.

Apple has pretty much never used its cash for buybacks. It has issued low yield bonds to fund them.

They have been since the cash repatriation.  All of last year.  Their goal is to be net cash neutral.  That is going to take a lot of buying back and div increases over the next 4-5 years.

Better use piles of unused cash for a replacement of a (carrier) subsidy plan - instead of only complaining about it