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'I'm Not Sure I Understand' -- How Apple's Siri Lost Her Mojo (wsj.com)
Apple has struggled to make Siri as smart as Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa because of disagreements among its staff and its decisions to limit how long it stores user data, former Apple employees told The Wall Street Journal. The company unveiled a new version of Siri during its WWDC keynote address on Monday but failed to show the world how it's much better than competing products from Google and Amazon (alternative source). There are a few areas where blame can be placed. The Journal said Apple keeps data for only six months while Google and Amazon continue to hold on to it, learning more and more about specific users as they continue to use the personal assistants. From a report: Some former executives, close observers and even devoted customers say Apple's innovative power appears to be waning, stymied by a lack of urgency and difficulty bringing ideas to fruition. In nearly six years under Chief Executive Tim Cook, Apple's stock has soared but the company has not delivered a breakthrough product on par with the string of hits under late founder Steve Jobs, which included the iPod, iPhone and iPad. "Siri is a textbook of leading on something in tech and then losing an edge despite having all the money and the talent and sitting in Silicon Valley," said Holger Mueller, a principal analyst Constellation Research, a technology research and advisory firm.
I had Siri-enabled iPhones for several years but never used the feature. Probably because I'm a visual person and prefer text over speech. Having used Amazon Echo at a friend's place, I have no desire get that or an Apple HomePod.
Wiping user data after six months is a landmark for the industry!
Claiming that Apple has lost it's mojo because it hasn't had an iPhone/iPad/iPod-sized hit in several years is preposterous on its face, as is claiming it because Siri only stores 6 months of user data, which is a direct reflection of Apple's stance on privacy. Personally I don't want companies storing my data for years and am willing to trade that for less accurate results.
How do I edit my sig.
When Apple lost Jobs in the '90s it almost failed. Only his return in 1997 saved Apple from the tech company trash heap. Every new innovation Apple ever pushed to success was championed by Jobs. Note I said championed, not developed. Jobs was an idea man. The only ideas Cook has are socio-political. It's dead, it just hasn't caught on yet. Eventually Apple will sell off its existing tech to try to exist a little longer. The days of its introducing new tech world changing innovation are gone.
"a lack of urgency and difficulty bringing ideas to fruition"
"Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish" :D
It seems that somebody has a short memory buffer... Wait...
"Apple keeps data for only six months"
Oh, now I see...
CYA
"Siwi, wecommend a westauwant."
"I do not understand 'wecommend a westauwant.'"
"See? Total cwap!"
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
As far as Wall Street analysts are concern, the quarterly results are the only thing that matters. If other cellphone manufacturers have something new and exciting each quarter, and Apple doesn't, Apple is falling behind. Eight quarters without something new and exciting is a long time for Wall Street.
It wasn't a Walled Garden; it was a Garden of Eden: They wanted anybody who was interested to be able to tinker with and provide advancements for their software; there were mailing lists, solid documentation, common and fundamental FOSS tools, etc.
Then the iPhone came out, and it all went to shit.
The whole thing from software to hardware became increasingly locked down, and hidden away behind proprietary, magical, black boxes. You want software? It needs to go through Apple's stores; you cannot do anything without telling Apple who you are. Heck, Apple just announced you MUST use 2-factor authentication.
The creativity left Apple, because the creative users in the community got fed up with Apple's increasing aversion to outside innovation; you either work at Apple, or you work within the strict confines of Apple's institutions. Fuck that.
In the past, Siri was pretty much equivalent to a speech-recognition interface to the Google search box. That, plus "hey Siri, set a timer for 35 minutes" on laundry day was about all I could get Siri to usefully do.
Still, yesterday she managed to handle this conversation in a useful manner:
Me: Hey Siri, what time does the nearest post office open tomorrow morning?
Siri: Do you mean this post office? (Show map with the nearest post office to my location indicated)
Me: Yes, that one.
Siri: The post office at (that address) is open from 9 am to 5 pm tomorrow
Me: Can you show me that address again on the map? (since the map was no longer being displayed, and I wanted to review it)
Sir: Here it is (shows map again)
Maybe Alexa and Cortana are light-years beyond this by now (I don't know, I've never used them), but I thought the above showed some progress on Siri's part -- in particular, Siri is starting to keep the context of the conversation in mind when interpreting follow-on requests, rather than treating each request as an independent/stand-alone query.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
People who think Siri led in the voice search/assistant tech really don't have very good memories. Google Voice Search was already doing a lot of things that Siri couldn't do at the time Siri was announced and had been doing it since 2010. Even after Siri was announced, GVS quickly closed the gap on the very few things that Siri did (jokes - as if **that** was important!) that GVS didn't do. Further, Nuance's Android product was doing hands free searches well before it came to Siri. Nuance, of course, sold some of their tech to Apple to become Siri.
Siri has never been the voice assistant leader. Never.
Steve Jobs was a tyrant but he understood that someone had to be the decider and he had no trouble doing it and doing it better. Apple is resting on its laurels but it certainly has a chance to be a great innovator again. It simply needs someone at the top to be involved enough to squelch any disagreements and have a vision of what they will build. Easier said than done.
Brain-dead assistant from a company that makes brain-dead user interfaces; they're keeping things consistent.
You believe that? Now pull the other one.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Just get rid of it. Waste of time.
as an iPhone user since 4s and a few androids in between I am getting tired of apple's non attention to the market. Siri is abysmal on understanding and getting you the right information. Using the on screen info search is even more cumbersome since its always a web search. Using CarPlay and Android Auto, found out what Google is doing great. I still find iOS superior in fluidity and stability over android. Its sad that they have 250 bil cash and have the R&D of a 99 store!
OK, let us move on.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Siri has issues because it is not a major focus of Apple, it just another me too thing, so they can't compete with Google on that front. It has nothing to do with how hard it violates your privacy.
First of all Apple's comp lags behind Facebook and Google so right from the get go it's not getting the very, very best talent because they don't all pay the same. Their base pay is at Amazon/Microsoft levels but Amazon/Microsoft are in Seattle where cost of living is cheaper and Amazon stock bonuses are better than Apple's. Paying Seattle wages in Cupertino is not the way to go. Plus right now Seattle = more livable than Cupertino too so if you have an offer from Apple and from Amazon you will likely take the Amazon offer.
Then you get into work environment. Facebook and Google are not sweatshops and beat Apple on quality of life. So you get more comp and a nicer work environment. Apple seems to be in a race with Amazon to see which one can be the harsher slave master. So between the notoriously bad work environment and the less than top of the line comp and the fact that Seattle PWNS Cupertino as a locale they are not getting the very top of the line talent so its no wonder they are failing to innovate.
They are damn lucky they have the iPhone.
I'm not just talking about Siri but its competitors as well. I haven't used Siri since it was first released and even then it would only be to schedule reminders when I was driving. I also don't know anyone who uses these assistants either (outside of asking it stupid crap when they're drunk). In short, does anyone really care?
Correct.
Incorrect.
Your post betrays a monumental misunderstanding of how the market works. Analysts are not excited by "new shiny" unless they believe that the new shiny will be associated with improvements in the company's bottom line.
Analysts don't care if Samsung releases a "new phone" unless there is the expectation that that new phone will translate to increased revenue, and increased profits. Analysts get excited by the bottom line. The PUBLIC - the unwashed masses - get excited by "new shiny consumer toy." The markets also like predictability - and Apple has been very good at that with respect to it's iPad and iPhone product lines - regular incremental updates, even if they come a year apart, are fine. What's not fine is the "release Apple Pro, then let it languish for 5 years with no updates." And in fact, the pressure from the market related to their aging & calcifying Mac hardware is what prompted them to take the (for Apple) unprecedented step of saying, "We have iMacs, iMac Pros, and a new Mac Pro computer in the works," MONTHS, perhaps even a YEAR, ahead of the product's release date. Apple is famously secretive - for them to cave to market pressure and give a sneak peek to assure people that updates were forthcoming was a huge departure - and it was largely driven by their unpredictable and irregular update cycle for their Macs, which caused huge amounts of dissatisfaction and negative chatter.
Have they moved into the Microsoft territory of "Me, too!" ?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Analysts are not excited by "new shiny" [...]
I must be reading The Wall Street Journal wrong then.
Here's the thing though.... Apple never had the data to begin with so they aren't actually wiping anything.
I'm in the same boat - I rarely use Siri, perhaps once or twice in the last year on my iPhone and NEVER on my iMac.
I run Windows 10 under Parallels on my small MacBook Pro and have NEVER even started Cortana, nor Siri on it.
Why? Well, for one thing, I don't need an IA. Second, although I trust Apple and its privacy policies, I absolutely do not trust Microsoft (particularly after the revelations during the initial roll-out of W10, when it was widely discovered how much "telemetry" was being sent back to Redmond), and I loathe Google and its basic lack of privacy. I use Google for a couple of things, but they're stuff like calendar events for an NGO in which I participate, plus a couple of discussion groups pertaining to open software. There is no useful data about me exposed to either W10 or Google, and never will, period.
Yes, I know that my iPhone (like any other cell phone) can be used to track where I've been and where I am, and
who's called me and whom I've called, etc. The only social medium I'm on is LinkedIn (yes, Microsoft, I know, I know...) and I only use that very lightly/occasionally.
It's just incredible to think that Apple, Google, and Microsoft can slurp up all this personal data from its users, yet
no one can be bothered to get rid of "Kelly from Account Services" and the rest of the scammers out there.
Siri only stores 6 months of user data, which is a direct reflection of Apple's stance on privacy.
You believe that? Now pull the other one.
It might be true. But the feds are sure to store it for much longer. And they sure do appreciate people building a corpus at higher quality than what they get via the phone network.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The summary says Apple failed to show its products were superior to its competitors. Two sentences later, it says Apple's users data is only retained for 6 months, unlike its competitors which retain it for longer. Does it not realize that answers the question conclusively about which is superior?
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Yes, given your inability to quote full context - much less understand it - I'm pretty sure your reading abilities & comprehension are lacking.
Here's what I wrote:
Here's what you quoted:
I guess cutting and pasting is enough exertion for you that you can only manage to use those oily ham hands to drag your mouse across 7 of the 24 words I wrote before you get tired and give up, huh?
"AI with only 6 months of data sucks, that's why we have to keep your private data forever"
None of it works because they don't understand a few simple things that naturally occur in speach:
1. Sometimes we pause to think, or to higlight something. Siri thinks a pause means you are done.
2. Sometimes we correct ourselves mid sentence. Siri doesn't understand that saying "text John, I mean Jane, I will be late" means you want to text Jane, "I will be late" and not text John "I mean Jane I will be late".
3. Some words make connecting comands with content more comfortable, but shouldn't be included in an actual text. Text Jane that I will be late should be "I will be late" and not "that I will be late".
4. We often add filler words to indicate that we are not done. Um, er, eh, and like are all examples of words we say that are not part of the content.
5. Most speach is driven by context. What I am doing will change how I say something. If I see a text alert from someone while listening to music the response should be able to tell which task I am focused on. I might have more than one nickname for different people, such as calling an inlaw Mom, or having more than one son.
6. Conversations are not linear. I can talk to a friend about work and sports at the same time, jumping back and forth, and there be no issue with what each sentence is refering to. You have to single task with Siri. I can't ask her to change the volume while also composing a message.
7. Pronouns and nicknames are more natural than proper nouns. If I get a text from my wife then Siri should know that I may use her name, or "her" just as often as I might say "my wife". Combined with context of what I am doing, I may call her "sweetheart" or "ball-and-chain".
8. Assistants should have decent short term memory. If I am asking her something and I get a call, *I* have to start over with her when we hang up. She doesn't remember what we were doing, nor can she remind me of what we were doing before the call.
9. Non-verbal communication exists. Not every step needs to be controlled with voice. If I tap something on screen that doesn't mean I done with Siri, it could just be faster than saying "yes" or "no". Some situations Siri could be useful, but I want start the request by typing my command. This is important when being discrete (such as on public transportation) or when Siri doesn't understand the word.
10. The relationship isn't personal unless I can call Siri whatever I want. My iMac is Stargate themed, so I want to call her Samantha. My iPhone is Dr. Who themed, so I want to call her Rose. Whatever name you like, being forced to use Siri ruins the immersion.
The issue isn't duration of data retention. It's who controls the data retention. Yes Google can potentially keep your voice search data for longer, but they let you review and delete it if you want. Amazon also lets you erase Alexa's recordings if you want.
Apple lets you erase your search history, but it's unclear if that also deletes the audio recordings they have of you.
Google and Amazon = YOU decide
Apple = They decide for you what's best
All of the AI's could show vast improvements simply by adding a "You misunderstood me" button to the interface.
You are a pedantic dork.
Yes, given your inability to quote full context - much less understand it - I'm pretty sure your reading abilities & comprehension are lacking.
You're assuming that I'm going to read analyst reports for a stock I don't own and not planning to buy. The rest of your point was irrelevant to my comment.
I guess cutting and pasting is enough exertion for you that you can only manage to use those oily ham hands to drag your mouse across 7 of the 24 words I wrote before you get tired and give up, huh?
I use a Logitech Marble Mouse (trackball). Have to keep that middle finger nimble.
Blame the Powerpuff Girls.
Four letters: B I N G
... but a detail-oriented finisher.
I mean, you literally have internal developers here saying "we couldn't build the product we wanted to because Apple enforced internally that we had good strong privacy protections in place".
What would it take for you to believe them at this point?
Look at these two statements:
"Apple has struggled to make Siri as smart as Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa because of disagreements among its staff and its decisions to limit how long it stores user data, former Apple employees told The Wall Street Journal.'
Ok fine. Now I would personally suspect that if six months isn't enough, then they don't use it much anyway, and I suspect the database will be poor in any event. But, now we come to the conclusion...
"The company unveiled a new version of Siri during its WWDC keynote address on Monday but failed to show the world how it's much better than competing products"
Much better? Why does it have to be "much" better? Isn't "any" better worthwhile? And isn't "any better than before" also an improvement?
"Some former executives, close observers and even devoted customers say Apple's innovative power appears to be waning"
And what does this have to do with how long Siri keeps data? If they are trying to conflate one with the other, fail.
"Does it not realize that answers the question conclusively about which is superior?"
You can have all the data in the world and still suck.
Bing, for instance.
"Apple's innovative power appears to be waning"
It's almost like the colossal asshole that was nevertheless a marketing genius and driving force behind the whole brand is no longer there?
-Styopa
I've never understood the fascination with talking to your electronic devices. I've used Google Assistant, Siri, and Alexa - none seem to work really well.
I suspect the designers of these systems never had to use them in a noisy car or in a house that had children living in it. Trying to get any of these systems to do what you want in these environments is difficult.
Voice activated assistants are just like the 3D TV in my house - an interesting toy that gets used a few times and then is forgotten.
I think this is the key issue we should be pondering, right here: are we willing to have our privacy weakened in order to get a better Siri/Alexa/Cortana? Or should we be applauding and working towards one that takes longer to perfect but makes privacy a priority?
Kinda like the question of weakening privacy rights to get better security, isn't it?
Perhaps a return to Sculley and openness would save the company.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Assuming this story is accurate (and it is probably overstating the entire thing), it is still inconsequential. People do not buy iPhones because of Siri. Siri not performing as well as (although in some specific cases it probably does perform better than) some other phone ecosystem's digital assistant is not going to cause people to switch from iPhone to that other platform. Apple knows this, and they are not particularly concerned about getting into a slugfest over it. Apple's style is to behave as if they make the only device of that type in the world, and they will not even acknowledge any competition exists (except in defending their patents). Siri only has to work well enough to do the basic things, and Apple will throw in a small enhancement on occasion and act like it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, and their customers will be perfectly content.
Better known as 318230.
Siri is hamstrung for one thing by being forced to forget things, also by the fact that as Apple made the OUTPUT voice more natural-sounding and realistic, it seems as if it ends up having an increasingly difficult time understanding what I'm saying. Frankly, it's almost completely useless, and while I too used to use it for things like reminders, adding things to the calendar, the functionality is so broken that factoring in having to say everything several times, trying to find the exact right way to say something so it won't arbitrarily look something up I don't want it to on the internet, and having to check over its work, or change something, it's quicker and easier just to enter it myself.
In other words, years after its initial release, SIRI may as well stand for "STILL ISN'T READY IDIOT!" (Meaning whoever at Apple decided to shovel some shit like THIS out the door... Sad.)
Siri is useful in the car when you want to do simple things: send a text message, play music (you can name), answer simple questions or set reminders/calendar dates.
Honestly it screws up even simple stuff most of the time. It cannot handle my wife's name which isn't anything exotic. I don't speak with a weird accent either - standard midwest bland. I find Siri to be frustratingly unreliable and routinely takes more time to use (and correct) than simply typing it in. I do use it here and there but not commonly and never in public. I don't like speaking to my phone out loud in public mostly for privacy reasons. It is terrible at dictation in my experience especially if there is any context involved.
Siri kind of reminds me of the handwriting recognition software on the Newton from back in the day. Neat but not really very useful and fails to work far too often.
When Siri first launched, I used it regularly to start timers, and I still use it regularly to do that. However, both when it launched and today, any time I ever try to ask Siri anything else, it just does a google search without reading any information out to me.
So, basically, Siri has proven to be useless to me for anything but setting timers, because it doesn't seem capable of answering any of my questions. Oh, I guess I use it to check a sports score a few times a year.
I would love for Siri to do more, to be able to actually answer my questions by looking up information. I'd use it more often. One example, the most recent thing that I asked Siri and got a google search result was "Hey Siri, what's the minimum wage in Japan?"
Siri just does a google search and doesn't read anything. Cortana, on the other hand, gives you an actual answer. I don't know what Google Assistant would do as it's not available on iOS in Canada.
No, I'm assuming that if you have an opinion about what "analysts" react to, you will ground it in REALITY. That's the only assumption I made. Please show me an analyst report where the analyst says anything that supports your argument that "new shiny stuff" is the only thing they care about?
Pro Tip: You can't.
As far as Wall Street analysts are concern, the quarterly results are the only thing that matters. If other cellphone manufacturers have something new and exciting each quarter, and Apple doesn't, Apple is falling behind. Eight quarters without something new and exciting is a long time for Wall Street.
Wall Street doesn't give a shit about new and shiny gear. Wall Street cares about profitable and growing. The only reason Wall Street pays attention to what new stuff Apple is making is over concern that it might affect profits and growth. That hasn't been much of a problem for the last 15 years or so.
Apple introduces a major new product platforms roughly once a decade. Apple ][ in 1977, Macintosh in 1984, Newton in 1993 (only major failure), iPod/iTunes 2001, iPhone, 2007, iPad 2010 (really just a bigger iPhone), Apple Watch 2015, etc with smaller products released in between. Worrying that Apple hasn't released anything huge in a few years is to have unrealistic assumptions. There simply aren't that many $20Billion new products out there and they certainly aren't going to release one every year. Apple will need to introduce something new at some point but they don't need to rush.
But is it really your data or theirs?
You are the author of what you say, but they control how and what is stored.
Precisely. I've been holding off on most smart devices, just so that I could wait for HomeKit to (maybe?) finally become a thing. Between Samsung's SmartThings, Amazon's Alexa, Google Home, and all the other brands in that space, HomeKit is the only approach I've seen that places a major priority on security and privacy, rather than attempting to make a quick grab for market share by rushing insecure, unvetted devices to market. While I may not care much about privacy in some areas of my life, I absolutely care about privacy in my home, so it's been worth the wait to see if it can become the right approach for me.
Does it not realize that answers the question conclusively about which is superior?
Yes. Google's and Amazons who have the data to actually do what is asked rather than appease some tin foil hatters.
Trying to parse the headline... A personal digital assistant software called 'Siri' has misplaced a random woman's 'mojo'? Sounds like something for a tabloid and not Slashdot... Am I missing something?
My wife is quadriplegic and depends on "Siri". I created an app that allows her to control her hospital bed by voice (bluetooth to arduino controlled switch relay). It is frustrating when she says "Open Bed Up" and Siri says "You don't have an app called "Bed Up", then you try again and it works. Siri obviously heard it correctly the first time, but didn't respond correctly. I figure it is because the commands are getting bounced to different servers in various states of maintenance. This kind of inconsistency is common with other commands as well. But with perseverance, my wife is usually able to accomplish whatever it is she wants to do until the device stops responding and needs to be reset, which happens almost daily.
If you want to learn about a topic you can usually get the first paragraph of a Wikipedia article, with "Tell me about ...". She also uses it to check and send text messages, emails, and phone calls, check the time and weather and set timers.
She also has a Galaxy S6 phone and uses "OK Google" for many of the same actions and queries, but as the person at Verizon confirmed for us, it has been working terribly after recent updates. Nothing we can do but wait until the problems are addressed.
I leave the house everyday with my wife setup with her devices (iPad, Galaxy phone and Dragon/Jaws PC). Sometimes all three will stop responding to voice commands during the course of the day.
But --- that's about all it can do. Few apps can participate (any?)
Apple added app integration last year for some specific domains and expanded on it this year (domains like messaging for example, so Siri can send messages through third party messaging apps).
I also would not put it at the level of personal assistant but I've found it works fairly well generally, and like others have been saying has been generally improving.
I had read Siri request data was anonymized and kept for 18 months, not 6. But it seems like with literally billions of queries that is enough data to train ML algorithms really well. In fact if you train too far back the kinds of requests people are making may not even be relevant anymore and pollute your training!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This isn't the nineties. Get an m570 already... that is, unless you're some kind of left-handed freak.
Get an m570 already...
The m570 has the trackball on the side, which means that my thumb will do most of the work. That's not a desirable feature. I use three fingers on the trackball and the thumb on the left button.
I've seen the size of your fingers; I didn't know Logitech used bowling balls for their trackballs.
Maybe they should market it's user friendliness over user explotation of google and alexo