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Apple Tells Siri To Stop Recommending Nokia
judgecorp writes "Apple has changed the answer Siri gives to the question 'What is the best smartphone ever?' to prevent the voice-driven assistant from promoting the Nokia Lumia 900. Originally Siri trawled online reviews on the web, using the Wolfram Alpha search engine, to come up with the Lumia, much to Apple's embarrassment. Now, Apple has intervened, replacing that answer with a joke: 'Wait there are other phones?'"
The term is "search engine Filter Bubble" -- see the nice introduction at http://dontbubble.us/ (admittedly focussed on avoiding personalisation).
If you use a meta search engine that doesn't collect personal information, such as DuckDuckGo.com, you can escape that problem.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
Interesting. Second result for me is Opera, and I'm a Chrome user.
Apple has made a strategic mistake here, giving the Apple Marketing Department control over the validity and content of the results that Siri provides.
It does, this is why I tend to be able to find stuff others cannot.
Use tools correctly and they work better.
(shrug). Google and Bing always come-up with different results.
What concerns me more is that Apple deliberately made Siri less-useful to the owner. What happens if you ask, "What is the best computer?" Or "What is the best MP3 player?" Or "What is the best tablet for reading books?" Now I have to wonder if Apple will censor those answers too. I buy a computer, or laptop, or phone, to help ME out with attaining knowledge not to serve the corporate master who built the computer/laptop/phone.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
If I ask for smartphone reviews, I expect smartphone reviews. It does bill itself as your big internet helper. If I wanted jokes when I asked for smartphone reviews, I'd download an app called "smartass jokes".
It's one thing to have jokes in there for when people ask blatantly daft things, like "will you marry me Siri", or "find me a restaurant on Mars". But when you ask a common question with a simple answer, you expect to get an answer.
What concerns me more is that Apple deliberately made Siri less-useful to the owner.
This is one of the situations where Apple really ought to be taking a page from Google. The problem in this case is that Siri is returning a nonsense answer as a result of Microsoft's astroturfing and marketing attempts to try to make Nokia not feel as lonely at the bottom of the market share charts.
The "right" way to fix that is to make your search algorithm less susceptible to slashvertizements and spam reviews. The stupid way is to change the single result someone pointed out to you and let the device continue telling people that snake oil cures cancer and plants crave Brawndo.
laptop, or phone, to help ME out with attaining knowledge not to serve the corporate master who built the computer/laptop/phone.
Then you shouldn't be buying Apple. It's well known their platform is all about lockdown and tying you into their ecosystem.
If you want an open platform, buy an open platform. Apple is not that. Hasn't been for decades.