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'I'm Not Sure I Understand' -- How Apple's Siri Lost Her Mojo (wsj.com)

Posted by msmash on from the how-Apple-lost-its-own-plot dept.

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.

14 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. Never used it... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Never used it... by Gilgaron · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It used to be good for stuff that takes a bit of fussing to enter, like a timer or a calendar reminder and so on. Lately for whatever reason it has become even more useless than it already was... "Set 10 minute timer" and it searches the internet for that string...in any case it certainly isn't worth having it always listening for "Hey, Siri" akin to the creepy home listening devices.

    2. Re:Never used it... by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 4, Informative

      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. I can't say I've used Siri in any other context: in most environments talking bothers other people, so I try not to talk.

      My parents have amazon echo, and I haven't really found a use for it in the house except to play music I can name. I'm not sure what else I *would* do with these things. In all other cases I'd rather be quiet and push buttons on my phone. Turning off lights and what not is a feature I always forget to use and usually forget to set up at all... the only time its useful is in bed at night, and I don't really want any further spying in the bedroom for a number of reasons.

    3. Re:Never used it... by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 3, Funny

      Alexa, open the pod bay doors.

      I once mis-spoke a question and discovered the following bizarre answer, which I'd love to find out the reasoning behind:

      "Alexa, what are [sic] the monkey [sic]?"
      "Monkeys are monkey, Katie, and monkey."

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    4. Re:Never used it... by Anubis+IV · · Score: 3, Insightful

      it certainly isn't worth having it always listening for "Hey, Siri" akin to the creepy home listening devices.

      While I agree, I think it's worth pointing out a key difference: Siri determines on-device whether you said "Hey, Siri", and only starts transmitting after that.

      In contrast, after receiving an Echo Dot as a gift from my company last year, we found a section in the companion mobile app (which, suspiciously, no longer seems to be available) that gave you a list of every time Alexa thought you had talked to it. Creepily, it even provided the recordings themselves so that you could listen through them to evaluate its performance and let Amazon know if Alexa had messed up. After listening to a few dozen of the recordings, it became apparent that Alexa was always listening and always transmitting, even if you weren't talking to it, since the recordings frequently started before we ever talked to it, as well as containing comments we had made long after accidentally triggering it.

      My wife, a "normal" non-nerd, was the one who was initially in favor of setting it up, and she's the only one who ever got any regular use out of it (as a voice-activated Pandora player), but even she's creeped out enough by it now that she asked if I'd be okay selling it on Craigslist.

  2. That's a NEGATIVE? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Wiping user data after six months is a landmark for the industry!

  3. It's all about Jobs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:It's all about Jobs by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Informative

      Jobs was part of the problem. He jumped on technologies early, to get to market first.

      I don't agree. Jobs is notable for jumping on technologies second or even third, but not settling for a second- or third-rate job from those in his employ. If you name a market which Apple blew wide open, it's always possible to name a product which is substantially similar which predates it. Not usually by very much, mind you.

      What Apple used to do best was take someone else's idea and do a much better job. Jobs would get his hands on it, say "this and this and this are stupid, make me a product which is not stupid" and then he would hammer on engineers until they produced something that was pleasant to use and behold. And no one should discount the importance of that, because it is so seldom actually done, and also because he clearly had substantial insight and/or was willing to listen to other people who had substantial insight often enough to be successful.

      As far as I am concerned, the only place that I can see that Apple has really failed so far (almost going away before because they didn't have Steve Jobs notwithstanding) is iTunes, which genuinely pisses people off. If people actually bought mp3 players any more, there might be room to blow Apple right out of the market by making a companion app that wasn't garbage. How ironic, since we know Apple for doing just that.

      People didn't just use Apple products because of the RDF, they really have had a history of making nicer interfaces which are easier to use than those of the competition. I have mostly avoided them because of various annoying limitations or overpricing, and have mostly been sorry when I bothered to venture into that field, but my interaction with Apple has always been on the hobbyist level and Apple is not interested in feeding that market, nor even simply not being abusive to it. It doesn't generate any money for them, so eh... piss on 'em. It's hard to blame them for that, though, as it is a typical corporate attitude.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  4. Siri's improving by Jeremi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
    1. Re:Siri's improving by mccalli · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I've noticed this too: "Add new reminder for 7pm today". Answer: "OK, I've updated your reminder". Aaargh - what have you done? What reminder have you changed? Wasn't the phrase "add new" enough for you?

  5. WTF: "Failed to show its products were superior?" by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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!
  6. Yes it's a negative by Solandri · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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

    1. Re:Yes it's a negative by tlhIngan · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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

      In other words, it's a wank control.

      Because Google and Amazon know normal users will not bother with it. They give so many warnings about "losing your personal history" and other crap that most users simply don't bother (assuming they know they can even access the setting). Sure, maybe once in a while they come across an article saying to do it, and they do it then, but that's maybe once a year tops. Whereas Apple does it every 6 months, regardless and automatically. Unless you're a super tech privacy geek that sets an alarm to clear your history every day, that is.

      Anyhow, the real issue is SIri's database is limited intentionally by Apple. Unlike Alphabet or Amazon, whose privacy policy allows sharing of data within themselves, Apple's privacy policy silos all the data. So while Google Assistant can access your YouTube history, your ad views (yes, Alphabet can share your history within itself, including all the ad networks they own), your emails and other data, Siri is very limited in handling the data it was allowed. So Siri cannot access your Uber history on iCloud, (but is allowed to ask the Uber app to schedule a car via SiriKit but is unable to retain that information - again, privacy)

      And it's not just why Apple is on a privacy streak (even at WWDC they continue to poke at Google and others about you being the product), but also because by not having your data on their servers, it's less data they need to serve up to law enforcement. They can't provide what they never collect, and if the data stays local on the device (which for increasing amounts of data, it does), they cannot collect what they're not provided.

      Yes, it makes their products less "integrated" because they're not communicating with the cloud constantly, but Apple feels that's the best way to operate in these current times.

  7. Siri just doesn't work very well by sjbe · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.