“There are some fundamental differences between Apple and Google when it comes to privacy, and I believe those differences will allow Google to continue to lead in the area of digital assistants infused with artificial intelligence,” Stephen Hackett writes for 512 Pixels. “However, consumer privacy has nothing to do with some of the simple tasks Siri still fails at doing.”
“I would like to think that some part of the Siri team is dedicated to making sure the service knows enough about current events to answer basic questions about them,” Hackett writes. “It sure seems like Apple’s focus on making Siri good at inward-facing features on iOS and macOS have come with a cost: that when it comes to interacting with real-world information, Siri is behind.”
“Siri should feel like a living, growing platform and it just doesn’t,” Hackett writes. “Even SiriKit, which allows developers to build plugins for the service, doesn’t get Apple far enough down the road. This is a platform vendor problem, and not one a handful of apps can solve.”
Read more in the full article here.
Dan Moren writes for Macworld, “This week, veteran tech journalist Walt Mossberg penned a scathing indictment of Apple’s voice-based assistant, in which he posed the question that most of us have asked at one time or another: ‘why does Siri seem so dumb?'”
“He’s not wrong,” Moren writes. “While I’ve had better luck than Mossberg in some of my interactions with the feature, I run up against rough edges pretty much every single time I try to use Siri for anything. Most of my iPhone-using friends tend to view Siri as more of a curiosity than a useful tool.”
Moren writes, “Last year I put forth some ideas about what a Siri 2.0 should include, but let’s take a step back and look at the bigger issues here.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Why does Siri work better on our Apple Watches than on our iPhones? Are we just asking better questions (for Siri) because it’s more spur-of-the-moment by just lifting our wrists than hauling out our iPhones? And/or are the Apple Watch microphones working better for Siri?And/or are we just imagining Siri works best on Apple Watch? If so, it’s a strong illusion because when we decide to use Siri, our first thought is to use our Apple Watches over any other device, Mac included, because we feel it has the best chance of working, based on our Siri-using experience.
SEE ALSO:
Mossberg: Why does Apple’s Siri seem so dumb? – October 12, 2016
Apple releases tvOS 10 with new Siri features, improved search, dark mode, and more – September 13, 2016
Apple’s Siri is set to control your home – September 6, 2016
An exclusive inside look at how artificial intelligence and machine learning work at Apple – August 24, 2016
Personal assistant bots like Apple’s Siri have a serious problem – July 18, 2016
Tim Bajarin: Siri is crucial to the Apple’s future – July 5, 2016
Apple’s Siri feels like a true personal assistant on Macintosh – July 1, 2016
The time has come to think different about Apple’s Siri – June 30, 2016
Conversing with Apple’s Siri in macOS Sierra already feels almost natural – June 22, 2016
Apple’s Siri digital assistant made Cortana look bad at WWDC – June 14, 2016
