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Siri Gives Apple Two Year Advantage Over Android
Hugh Pickens writes "Gary Morgenthaler, a recognized expert in artificial intelligence and a Siri board member, says that Apple now has at least a two-year advantage over Google in the war for best smartphone platform. 'What Siri has done is changed people's expectations about what's possible,' says Morgenthaler. 'Apple has crossed a threshold; people now expect that you should be able to expect to speak ordinary English — and be understood. Siri has cracked the code.' The threshold, from mere speech recognition to natural language input and understanding, is one that Google cannot cross by replicating the technology or making an acquisition adds Morgenthaler. 'There's no company out there they can go buy.' Morgenthaler's comments echo the recent article in Forbes Magazine, 'Why Siri Is a Google Killer' that says that Apple's biggest advantage over any other voice application out there today is the massive data Siri will collect in the next 2 years — all being stored in Apple's massive North Carolina data center — that will allow Siri to get better and better. 'Siri is a new interface for customers wanting to get information,' writes Eric Jackson. 'At the moment, most of us still rely on Google for getting at the info we want. But Siri has a foot in the door and it's trusting that it will win your confidence over time to do basic info gathering.'"
http://siriouslyweird.tumblr.com/
http://sirisaysthedarndestthings.com/
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Stopped reading after that
People aren't going to use Siri very much, because talking to your phone makes you look stupid. It's been on Android for years anyway, and no-one used it there. That Apple claim it's more useful now means nothing. It's like forward facing cameras - outside of a tiny niche no-one cares.
Really?
Really!?
You feel that a voice interface makes people useless and dependant? Do you intentionally only communicate between other people using morse code via hand signals? (that's just the least user friendly and effective method I could think of)
Sometimes I weep for the stupidity of humanity... I can't even laugh at you because it's just not funny... it's fucking scary
"Their entire product line is aimed at people who can barely power up their computers"
Opinions and assholes, et al. This is simply overstated and wrong. Take it from a ton of users who are a wee more capable than you seem to give credit for. There are some who simply want their tech to Just Work without a lot of configuring and fiddling and other time-wasting nonsense.
"You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline." - Frank Zappa
Wow, board member of company says company's technology is the most amazing and groundbreaking thing since sliced bread. What a surprise. This just in, Bill Gates says Windows is the best OS, and Larry Ellison says Oracle databases are hands-down unbeatable.
I don't blame the guy for saying it, of course he probably thinks his product is the best. Maybe he even believes the thing about the two-year advantage, but he's also got a pretty vested interest in making other people believe it too.
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
Seriously, Apple seems to be grasping at straws for any edge over Android phones. I'm not going to make comparisons between Siri and Google Voice Search, as plenty of others are doing that. What I will say is that Siri (and other voice command systems) are gimmicks at best. Unless their entire client base is visually impaired, I doubt that it will see any serious day-to-day use once the novelty has worn off. Texting and twitter are growing because people aren't talking into their phones. What makes Apple think that Siri will change that trend?
Talking to a device is just awkward. You try popping out your iPhone 4s in public transport and start giving voice commands to the thing. People will look funny at you. And this won't change in the next two years. So that's why this 2 year head start (assuming that's not hugely over-estimated) is a head start in a direction that's dead to begin with.
I'm an iphone 4s owner and wish that instead of Siri, I had a phone that could actually just not drop calls every 5 minutes. Seriously, the 4s is way worse than my old iphone 3G in this respect.
One thing that really took me by pleasant surprise was Google's non-English transliteration engine built into edit boxes/text compose windows of all google sites. English has just five vowels with y and w coming in very occasionally to support vowel sounds . Most Asian languages have distinct glyphs for at least 12 vowels (long and short forms separated and a few more). Google allows me to type using an English key board, when I hit a space, it changes text to the selected Indian language. If the text is not exact, I press backspace, and it creates a drop down box that typically has a few variations, and I am surprised how good its guesses are about what I was planning to type.
If Google has been collecting such data about the most common english transliteration for the most common words in other languages, it has a treasure trove of stuff. If that probability engine could be adapted to voice, it would have a global reach. If Siri has an American English focus, its lead is definitely not two years. Do not count the non-native English speakers out. Hispanic population is increasing and they use smart phones to access the net mostly. On the high end, the median family income of Asian Americans is the highest for any ethnic group. Almost double that of Hispanics, the lowest. That probably would make the ratio 3 or even 4 when it comes to disposable income. Citation provided. Unless they tackle both ends of the income spectrum, siri is not going to make as big a wave as these talking heads are talking about.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
It's mostly done for the few people that care. As much as apple would love for siri to sound like an amazing feature, it is far from groundbreaking and most people just don't care.
Essentially what it gets used for is a decent voice command here or there. I forgot what site it was that was analyzing siri's data usage and categorized people by number of uses per day. I think the average was 3. People use their phones more than that in a day, let alone what that shows of siri.
Not just that- they voice profile you.
Your Siri learns your voice and learns to understand you. The schematics of your individual voice is mapped.
So now in this privacy-free world- facebook can pick your face out of a crowd and identify you and Apple can hear your voice and identify you. Not long ago there was stories about software that can identify you by your walk.
Scary- there is no anonymosity anymore... ... except on slashdot- and I have ways of finding out who Anonymous Coward really is.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Yet you've probably had no problem with Google collecting your data over the past decade?
I wish my lawn was emo, so it would cut itself.
>It already does 99% of what Siri does
Siri is the 1%!
Occupy Siri!
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
Iris is a weak attempt.
Siri's advantage isn't the speech recognition or ties to Wolfram Alpha, but that it handles natural language (as TFA is referring to). I can tell Siri "I locked myself out of my apartment" and it will show me a list of nearby locksmiths to choose from via Google Maps. Iris will soon be able to do google lookups of math equations or tell me the capital of a country, but Siri goes far more than that.
It's not about knowledge or access to data, but about your device recognizing what you mean. This is unlike even established products like Dragon dictate; it stops becoming LCARS from Star Trek and turns into JARVIS from Iron Man. The various wisecracks that Siri can deliver back were also part of Apple's design to give it some attitude.
>Most financial news stories are PR
An awful lot of all news stories are PR. Start looking for that certain tone, look at links to any sources... you will soon see a great many stories are copies of copies of PR releases
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
According to the summary, siri is a google killer and makes apple the best smartphone platform.
For those assumptions to be true, that means that siri has to be something that people want. While I admit there is a somewhat star trekian cool factor by talking to your phone. On*Star has had similar features. Ford's respond to voice commands and read text messages, etc. And yet, people aren't dumping their current cars for these must have features.
Granted siri is beyond the capabilities of On*Star and the like, but does the public really want to use a phone where you say everything out load for everybody around you to hear, too?
User on subway: Read Text Message.
Phone: From Sharon, I think it's time we move on and see other people.
User on subway: Damn.
Other riders on subway: Awwwww.
Don't get me wrong, there are times that this would be useful, but is it a necessity? If not, then how will it kill google ?
Remember Siri was available on all phones until Apple bought it and shut it down on competing phones.
Bill would be proud.
I find being offended by me offensive.