Yes, Siri can usually place a call or send a text. It can tell you sports standings, Yelp restaurant reviews and movie times – features Apple added years ago. And it must be said that all of its competitors have their own limitations and also make mistakes.
But in its current incarnation, Siri is too limited and unreliable to be an effective weapon for Apple in the coming AI wars. It seems stagnant. Apple didn’t become great by just following the data on what customers are doing today. It became great by delighting customers with feats they didn’t expect. The AI revolution will demand that.
‘Stagnant’?
Seems to be the default state of Apple’s software these days.
I find myself cursing at Siri, all the time. It just doesn’t ‘interact’ or ‘respond’…sometimes when I insult Siri, she says, “I can search the web for that”….nothing ‘intelligent’ in that at all….
Agreed, it’s gotten to the point where I just ask Siri for the most basic of information. Though for some reason Siri will activate periodically while watching a video, with none of the dialog being an obvious trigger.
Google Now is so far ahead of Apple’s solution it’s almost comical. Not only that but I have over 200 custom voice commands I’ve personally added. Mostly to do with file management but still extremely useful. Examples, “Google, show me all [file extension] files created on [date]”, “Google, show me all photos from [city] with the person [name]” and so one and so forth. How people use an iPhone on a daily basis without a global search, let alone a search function operated by voice is beyond me. I think people are just lying to themselves, I don’t need this, but the sheer amount of people I see trying to find a simple photo out of hundreds is quite depressing. In fact, I don’t think I’ve met any iPhone user who could find anything on their iPhone within a minute, it takes them at least 5 – 10 minutes. I can find any file, photo, video, in under a minute, everything, even files located in the cloud as all of my cloud storage services are mounted as local folders in which every app can access directly.
I have an iPad Pro for music creation, using it for anything else, especially productivity tasks, well, it’s just simply an awful experiance. Multitasking is a joke, I cannot select my own default apps, dealing with files, especially files is so bad that’s I’ve honestly never seen anything like it. If any other OS forced their app developers to manage their own files, that OS would dissapear in under a year. Yes, it’s that bad, show me one other OS that is as bad in dealing with files, it doesn’t exist, as such, iOS is simply a joke. Again, how people use this thing on a daily basis is beyond me, I mean it, just a POS.
Interesting. Can you do that without Tasker?
<blockquote>How people use an iPhone on a daily basis without a global search, let alone a search function operated by voice is beyond me</blockquote>
I use an Android phone on a daily bases and do not care about this functionality.
Same, but I also don’t keep much data on it (except for music, but I use VLC not Google Play Music, so I don’t get integration there, and I could still find a song faster most of the time by hand even when using Play Music).
Obviously you don’t know anything about iPhone features.
Edited 2016-10-16 03:32 UTC
Actually I know a lot, both of my kids use them, I have an iPad Pro, etc. What you’re talking about is in app search functionality, I’m talking about a global search function. Using one system to find any and all files located on my phone. Look I realise a lot of people don’t store files on their phones because they dont use them for anything but the most basic of tasks.I on the other hand actually use my phone as, well, a smartphone, a computer. Before you comment on that, I think our ideas of a smartphone are completely different. What most do with their phones today, I was already doing 6 years ago, besides the social media crap.
No, Im talking about the next step, I actually create detailed reports with my phone by parsing incoming emails containing delimited data files, importing the data into a local MySQL database, than use Office HD (OpenOffice for Android), which is connected to MySQL, to do the calculations, formating, etc. When finished the script I use to do all of this automatically uploads the new report to a backup NAS drive, emails out to those who need it. All done in the background on a timer. This is just a tiny taste, I have a full LAMP server, Apache, MySQL, PHP running locally in which I use to run hundreds of custome web apps, most of which are utilities for monitoring customer trade, creating reports, running scripts on servers, etc. By using a LAMP it saves me from having to write an app, this is perhaps the coolest thing I’ve ever done with my phone.
I’ve been using my phone as a computer years before Continumm was even a glimmer in Microsofts eye. Started with the Nokia N900, which was basically a portable Linux computer. I used to connect it to a monitor, mouse and keyboard and than went to town. The power of a Linux terminal with a scripting language like Perl and Python is unlimited.
Now though, with 6GB of RAM and a Qualcomm 821, not only is my phone a computer it’s a damn fast one at that. So when I use an iPhone it’s like a virtual prison to me, so much power with no way to access it. If I wanted just a phone I would still be using my Nokia E72, which by the was able to run apps in the background (I used to run a terminal in the background the entire day connected to firms server), had a real file-system, a decent office suite with database, a scripting language, etc.
I get that there are people not looking for these type of things, however many are, as such the iPhone just isn’t a decent option for us, for me especially.
What do you mean without global search? Swipe down, type in search box, all apps that support allowing their data to be searched will be. Are you saying all data in apps should be automatically searched regardless of privacy status and context of the data?
That was one thing I found very impressive about Hound. If I asked, “What time is it in Chicago?”, I could immediately follow up with “and in Prague?”, and I didn’t need to restate the question. Additionally, where extra info was needed, Hound will ask for it.
It makes me wonder why Siri still, after more than a year, lacks these fairly basic interactions that Hound has had since the beginning. But perhaps it’s just too far out Siri’s architecture, and it took a system designed from the beginning to handle it.
I just tried it with Siri and it worked as you described.
That’s Artificial Intelligence for you.
You know why these AIs, auto pilots in cars are so dumb and the auto pilot seems so dangerous sometimes?
These tools are really brilliant at determining things and to make your life easy for you.
Example, an auto pilot mode enabled car can sense objects nearby at the same time through the built-in radars and other sensors like camera.
But the most important thing to note is like SIRI and other intelligent tools to help us around, they do not have common sense.
And we need common sense every now and then to stay away from trouble when driving. Letting the Auto Pilot control even your common sense will leave you in a very dangerous situation.
Far more irritating is how badly Siri responds to someone who is under any form of stress. When you get to the point where you’re swearing Siri will say something along the lines of “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.” and then exit.
Irritating when you’re just getting increasingly frustrated at Siri’s inability to call a damned cab because it can’t understand the words “cab” or “taxi” but this will cost someone dearly at some point during an actual emergency when some iPhone user is physically unable to do something themself and Siri continues to fuck up – not provide the service required of the user (like call an ambulance) but will bitch and exit when it hears a naughty word.
People are not polite when things go south and Siri as it is right now just makes things worse.
A software assistant that refuses to work due to hearing naughty words has been built to fail for no good reason.
Imagine the headlines and SJW rage if Siri kept trying to help you while you yell profanities at it.
– “Apple encourages verbally assaulting women.”
– “Apple condones abusing Siri”
– “something something the R word”
I swear everyone using the SJW expression is a fucking moron. If there is one group of people that doesn’t give a flying fuck about some swearing, it’s the bleeding-heart liberal segment. You have them confused with conservatives. They’re the ones throwing a fit when they hear naughty words. It wasn’t the ACLU that took legal action against 2 Live Crew, if was the fundamentalist Christian group American Family Association.
Siri is a computer program, not a woman.
You lose all credibility as soon as you utter the term “SJW”. When you have to put a label on everything and everyone instead of having an actual argument, you lose.
Indeed. Thought about commenting but didn’t think it was worth it – IME all that uses SJW are idiots and assholes. Yes _some_ that are _called_ SJW are idiots and assholes too but that’s considerably less common.
You 5wo ignored the entire point being made in order to make a big deal out of labels, as if there’s some unprivileged group whose associated slur is SJW. This is what people mean when they say SJW
Bullshit. Every time I’ve seen somebody with a trackable user identity use the SJW label they are protesting against reality (research with real numbers), change in general and people not accepting discrimination. Some try to paint the use being exclusively for idiots like radical feminists etc. however sooner or later they slip up and hint at their real worldview.
In discussions those that are called SJW are those that point out real biases (measurable!), discrimination, being against sexual harassment or even such things as pointing out evidence of biological basis for e.g. homosexuality and transsexualism.
Do you really think the SJW label should be used for that and also for the rabid extremist feminist, extremist gay groups etc.? If so do you think the nazi label should be used for every group not leftist?
I think not.
Whats wrong with you?
Emergencies are exactly the times when you must be cool, collected, firm but most assuredly polite… piss of the 911 lady and she’ll hang up on you. http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/13/us/911-call-operator-arrested-hang-up…
Also, why are you cussing out a computer program… probably in public! Quite frankly it’s foolish to expect intelligence from computers… perhaps someday but current trends don’t seem to indicate that it is any time soon. The AI we will get probably won’t be what we expect…
I also think you’d be hard pressed to find a person that doesnt just want AI as a convenient slave/subordinate… I’m all for it actually but it does say something about humanity I guess.
…very dumb. Alexa is tolerable but even that makes me eye roll.
is a non starter for me. Until I can have a proper conversation with an AI then I’ll pass thank you very much.
It (Siri etc) is not the deal breaker that some people seem to think it is IMHO.
In future it may well become a real deal breaker but it has to be done properly otherwise it will fall flat on its smiling face. That is no easy job. Human interaction using voice is very, very complex. We (humans) have very adaptive minds and can work around all sorts of issues. not so easy for bits of silicon.
That’s what happen when you sell a party gimmic as the next big thing.
Seems to be the default state of Apple’s software these days.
Words spoken by someone with zero experience developing software.
Sorry Thom, most software is mediocre. It’s the norm. The products that are exceptional – well, they only stay exceptional whilst the developers have enthusiasm, challenges and often can justify spending money on development. When you have produced some software, I guess we will all laugh and ridicule you? Oh wait… Hell might freeze over first.
Most software ISN’T mediocre. Most simply does its intended job.
As consumers we constantly want more and more features and “bling”. The reality is, once those original features are met, the product is done, finished.
You can rewrite your Microsoft Paint as many times as you like, but at the end of the day, it does what it always has, and does it well. So why would/should you?
It’s rather refreshing to see someone else with this opinion. Engineering (which is what programming really is) is about achieving the required goal with a reasonable margin of safety while (ideally) using resources as efficiently as possible. Defining actual requirements for a piece of software is not as easy as for something like a suspension bridge, but that doesn’t change things at all in that respect.
Take a look at the UNIX command ‘ls’ for example. The only actual changes to the original functionality have been to add new pieces of metadata it can list and improvements to the UI. Both of those fall entirely fall within the original specification of displaying directory contents and metadata. Is ‘ls’ stagnant in terms of development? Yes. Is that a bad thing? No, because it doesn’t need new features.
That said, while I have issues with software that tries to do everything (EMACS immediately comes to mind), a lot of Apple stuff is way too far on the other side of things in this case.
Um, very little programming is actual engineering. Most programming has zero to do with actual safety or tolerances. Calculate a material property incorrectly, your bridge collapses, building crumbles in an earthquake, car crumples and kills the passengers. Very little programming has any where near those kinds of repercussions. Claiming all but very specific programming is engineering is insulting to actual engineers.
Take a step back from the safety tolerances and such. They’re the same at the heart, you’re trying to figure out how to achieve a given end result under a specific set of constraints. The basic process in both cases is:
1. Define your primary goal.
2. Define constraints that must hold aside from the primary desired outcome.
3. Develop a working model of a system which will achieve that goal.
4. Construct a prototype based on that model.
5. Evaluate the prototype for correctness.
6. Repeat from step 3 making changes to further improve upon the design’s ability to meet the specified goal within the specified constraints until all are fully satisfied.
It’s insanely simplified, but it describes the core process of both engineering and programming when they’re done right. The only differences are the type of constraints. In engineering, it’s usually cost and safety, while in programming it’s mostly resource usage and user experience. Many programmers skip step 3 in that list, and quite a few also skip step 2, and I’d agree that many such programmers aren’t doing any kind of engineering, and comparing them to engineers (or even programmers who are doing things correctly) is insulting to the engineers. That said, there are quite a few who do follow that exact procedure, and it’s pretty easy to tell if you know what to look for, because their software is usually far superior to anyone else’s. Apple actually fell into this category early on, although that started slipping not long after the earliest iPhone releases.
Oh dear. Look, I’m a programmer. I’ve made a good living out of it for almost 20 years. I’m bloody good at what I do, and I hold together large projects as the development lead, especially on some very tricky multi-tier, multi-user projects with integration in to 3rd party telecomunications products. What I do really does matter. Seriously, if my code goes wrong, people really do die. But engineer? No.
I’ve never had to do any specific training to be where I am. I have a University degree that says 20 years ago I sat exams that tested I could retain various bits of info about computers and programming – do you know how much of that knowledge I use today? Probably next to zero. Because software is not an engineering discipline. It’s more like construction. As in – we get the cement, glue the blocks together, build the structure. We do very little that any idiot with half a brain and a manual couldn’t do with a enough time and patience. But could a layman design a bridge that could withstand the tolerances necessary to stand up through a tropical storm? By just picking up a few book? No.
You’re underselling your own experience. An engineering degree, or any other degree for that matter, is no different from what you’re describing a CS degree as. A degree doesn’t make you an engineer, just like a degree doesn’t make you a programmer. Skill means just as much in both cases, otherwise there’s no reason to pay more for someone with more experience.
To use your own example, an average layman could design a usable suspension bridge given sufficient reference material (children do this regularly on a small scale for science fairs and physics classes), but it would take significantly longer, be significantly less resource efficient, and a lot less durable than something designed by a professional engineer.
In the same way, yes, a layman could write a program given sufficient reference material. Just like with the bridge though, it would take longer, be less efficient, and probably be a whole lot less secure than something written by a professional.
Now, using your own analogy of programmers being more similar to construction workers, think about the fact that that would make the people who develop the tools you use to code equivalent to engineers, and those who develop the API and networking standards equivalent to architects. Yet, both groups are also programmers.
If you’re working as a project lead for a piece of software, you’re doing (assuming things are sanely managed) pretty much the same things that a project lead in an mechanical engineering project does, except you’re probably using a distributed VCS instead of a centralized one, and you’re reviewing different types of changes.
There have been self taught engineers. Not all engineering has to be about life or death construction. eg, that story about the kid in an African country who built windmills by learning off books he found. They provide electricity and water to the town. That’s engineering.
Today, CNC machines are cheap enough for people with the dedication to do amateur engineering stuff on their own, and create their own mechanical parts. It’s engineering.
Kids today can pick up Arduino parts and learn off books and videos how to create their own robotics stuff. Engineering.
Most end up in manufacturing and research rather then programming.
Engineering does not mean writing code after templates just because the core design was already implemented and nobody wants to change anything.
You don’t even need a diploma for this in most cases (even so companies do complain that they have a hard time finding capable programmers for the “right” price).
As for software nowadays being just mediocre it’s probably more related to the implications it may have on the existing user base that keeps on going.
Normal people do not like change. Once they do get accustomed to a specific functionality, changing it or adding features can very well put you out of business these days.
I just write scripts, but suspected that when programmers say “engineering” they just mean “discipline”. And when they say “architecture” they just mean “plan” and “organise”. Which isn’t to take anyway from how hard it can be.
Before Architecture became a profession, it used to be practiced by master builders and one learnt by being an apprentice. I wish that route still existed because I couldn’t get my head around learning a skill in a classroom rather than by practicing it in a real working context. I like scripting/programming because I can learn by doing. And it involves a lot of the planning and organising that one would do with a small building.
But when it comes to bridges, that really is engineering. We’re out of the common sense reasoning and into hard science.
Actually bad programming has exactly those types of repercussions and because of the lack of safety that has been put into programming to date we are experiencing negative repercussions. Unsafe programming has led directly to physical damage and loss of life.
Exactly. You win the internet. I purposely used the word mediocre to highlight how idiotic the statement Thom made was. Why does it matter if the product is average – it gets the job done.
Now *THAT* is a very good question. Should developers be spending time rewriting applications that have already met all of their intended requirements? I don’t think so. If a program Just Works(TM), leave it as-is and move on to the Next Big Thing.
Compare any Apple service to the Google equivalent and Apple will come short every time and the gap seems to grow. On macOS I barely use any of the built-in apps, and I’ve tried, I really did. My record was 3 weeks with Safari, but in the end I returned to Chrome. iWorks is decent, in it’s own limited way, but the other day working on a Google spreadsheet it prompted me if I’d like to see a distribution of the status column in the tasks list I was working on.
After 7 years of Android last year I’ve switched to iPhone. Other than phone, messages and camera I do not use any of the stock apps, they simply are subpar, it’s not only that they lack features, but they also force you to use the Apple services.
PS: I’ve been earning my living by developing mediocre software for the last 18 years.
Nonsense. Have you seen the Messages app lately? It’s got stickers and frickin disco lights!! All we need now is for them to sell MDMA on the app store. Envelope pushing shit, I tell you!!
If you think Siri leaves lot to desire in English, you should try it in Finnish. It is remarkably dumb, to the point of being downright embarrasing. It hears you quite correctly, but has no clue of the content and what to do with it. In English the exact same commands work perfectly, the few simple ones that do, that is.
Whoever pushes Siri updates is not working under the same management that polishes every last pixel in Apple software.
Maybe they’re concentrating too much on the pixels and not enough on the software?
Seriously, while I still prefer iOS to Android and likely will until Google seriously get their act together, it’s quite clear that Apple no longer have the same focus on pure quality that they once had. Perhaps it’s bad management, perhaps complacency, or a combination of the two. They’re still more stable than any other mobile choice in my experience, however who knows how much longer that will persist?
I’ve never tried Siri, I don’t own Apple-stuff, but all the other speech-recognition systems and assistants I’ve tried fall flat on their faces with Finnish. It’s hard to get excited about any new speech-recognition system/assistant/whatever when you know you won’t be able to use it anyways.
It is annoying since Finnish should be easier for computers to understand than English. That is at least my impression. One thing computers do well is that they can learn and remember a bunch or rules. Exceptions and fuzzy interpretations are harder.
Finnish has a much more definite structure than English. Grammar and pronunciation are (at least with some care from the speaker) quite rigid. I mean, you can’t really have a spelling bee in Finnish. It would be pointless.
Then again if Siri actually some day understands English, Finnish should be a piece of cake.
It probably is easier, but there’s just more money invested in English (and Chinese, in China).
Stagnant is easy to explain:
Siri was build by an other company that came out of a university.
Then Apple bought the company and integrated it as Siri, the people that build the original company/technology got a bunch of money and started a new company.
So the people that developed it aren’t with Apple anymore. So there is basically no big development.
Edited 2016-10-14 22:41 UTC
Siri is worse than the chat bots we all followed back in 2005 or so.
It’s bad even for the 0-kelvin-low software quality standards at Apple – I can’t remember the last day Xcode didn’t crash on me or macOS didn’t show me a beach ball.
I’d be more forgiving if it worked locally. But streaming my voice all the way to Cupertino for that?
I used it as a text menu for low power mode until I broke my 5s and bought an SE.
Good riddance.
Siri etc. are chatbots with speech recognition and synthesis added. Chatbots aren’t AI and they aren’t smart in any way, they are at most expert systems following a list of rules.
Maybe they are busy counting their money.
I’ve been on OSNews from (nearly) the start, and Apple was beaten up here pretty badly for the longest time, going out of business any minute now for a long time. Granted, they were close in the mid-90’s.
Instead of product quality focus and market making strategies, most here said Steve Jobs just made computers different colors for idiots.
Instead of high customer satisfaction ratings and resale values, most here said Apple sold to dolts based on marketing and trendiness only.
Instead of Linux for the desktop like most here pined for, Jobs gave us Unix underneath Mac OS.
Then Jobs’ launched his plan. Start with music but lay the groundwork for the whole mobile future:
Instead of DRM and weird file formats, Apple gave us a handy MP3 ecosystem (player/store/manager/accessories) and started taking marketshare.
Instead of a stylus and flip keyboard, Apple gave us the first properly done finger interface on a slab, and iphone/ipad took over the world.
Instead of relying on chips, batteries, and other hardware designs from suppliers, forcing you to compete with knockoffs using the same parts, Jobs/Ivey/Cook figured out they had to bring certain designs in house so they couldn’t be shared. Hence custom Apple batteries, custom chips, cases and screens that can’t easily be copied in real time in the marketplace.
My point — I watched the whole thing happen, from $12 shares and the rats jumping ship, to the iMac is a joke, to iPhone’s won’t sell for chit… to now, when they are so successful we take shots at them for not doing enough… and I still believe there’s an irrational hatred of apple inc out there, based on sociological things I couldn’t hope to understand.
signed,
relatively happy apple customer since 1992
Edited 2016-10-17 16:04 UTC
When there’s an irrational love of Apple out there, based on sociological things I can’t hope to understand – it’s inevitable you’ll get irrational hatred of apple inc out there, based on sociological things you couldn’t hope to understand.