“Apple is playing catch up. Six years ago, it was the first major tech company with a voice assistant. Now Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home smart speakers are finally making the assistants mainstream, while Apple’s Siri flounders,” Heather Kelly reports for CNN. “Next week at WWDC, Apple may try to get back in the game by announcing a Siri smart speaker.”
“CEO Tim Cook and other Apple executives will show previews of the next iPhone, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV operating systems during a Monday keynote address in San Jose, California,” Kelly reports. “There are also rumors the company will announce a new smart speaker and updates to its Mac and iPad lines.”
“This is the iPhone’s 10 year anniversary. In addition to releasing a special iPhone update later this year, a bigger than usual iOS update would also make sense,” Kelly reports. “Beyond a visual overhaul, Apple could include updates to Apple Music and some core apps like Maps.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: As usual we plan on covering Apple’s WWDC keynote address with live notes starting shortly before 10am PDT / 1pm EDT. Just load up Apple’s livestream in one browser window (www.apple.com/apple-events/june-2017/) or tab and our live notes in another (see our home page for the link on Monday morning), so you can comment on Apple’s revelations in real time.
You mean like how they played “catch up” with computers, smart phones, tablets and music players eking out more profit from those devices than about any else?
Good one 🙂
I for one won’t ever be buying a google or amazon home device. There’s no way I want those companies listening into my life at home.
I expect to be underwhelmed.
I expect to be whelmed, but I’m cool with it.
So you’re like the Baby Bear in this story.
Prestige Brands, marketers of Sominex® sleeping aid, have contracted with Apple to allow a focus group to today’s keynote speech. According to Ronald M. Lombardi, CEO of Prestige Brands, “We hope to garner empirical data from Tim Cook’s keynote audience to help us develop new, non-pharmaceutical techniques to naturally induce sleep.”
“Listen to Tim Cook today and sleep, safe and restful…
sleep. sleep. sleep.”
We get it. You don’t like Cook. You wish Steve Jobs were still at the helm…I don’t know anyone who would disagree, even Cook.
But this is the thing…change can make things worse. So, it makes sense to carefully consider change and its potential impacts (positive or negative) rather than just agitating for change. Who should replace Cook? Would Cook be willing to stay on at Apple and help to maintain the operations and logistics side of the corporation? What do you expect to happen as a result of this change.
You must realize that many people on this forum consider you to be a narrow-minded, arrogant political tool. Perhaps you could use a little change, yourself.
Call 1-800-GIV-ASHT, cupcake.
Saying Apple is “catching up” on smart speakers is like saying King Kong is “catching up” when it reaches for some grapes that monkey’s were eating.
If you were to pick the most valuable areas to dominate in tech, Apple (by no accident) dominates them all. The most valuable area being mobile (through iOS) and high end smartphones (iPhones). Next, high end laptops, then Apps stores, high end tablets, Apple Pay has a huge future and Apple Music services. Talking speakers? Google sells less of those than Apple Watches and at much less of a profit. It’s a minor market, but one Apple can grab if it wants.
Because Apple so completely dominates the most important categories, anti-Apple tech journalists keep having to invent new areas that are supposedly more important. (Remember VR? Facebook is completely head of Apple and… oh, no one cares about VR.)
Strategically, Apple doesn’t want to dominate every single tech category. For starters, because, as Steve Jobs famously said, what you don’t do is as important as what you do. It’s silly for Apple to waste major resources testing out what might turn out to be minor markets. (Like talking speakers.) But there also could be serious anti-trust issues if Apple just jumps in and takes over every market. (Remember all the time, and money, wasted on trying to make a big play in ebooks? It wasn’t worth the headache.)
On top of that, it matters what competitors are successful in what. Amazon failed big time in smart phones. If they had succeeded, that would have been a real threat to Apple. But Amazon succeeding in talking speakers is a much bigger threat to Google and Microsoft, than Apple. It’s good for Apple that Amazon (using a variant of Google’s operating system), is getting a foothold in search. Likewise, it’s good for Apple that Google is succeeding with cheap Chromebooks in schools, because that’s eating Microsoft’s lunch.
If Apple does release a talking speaker, it’s because they have some interesting take on it and why not grab for the grapes. But the real future in voice control will be battery earpieces and smart watches, which Apple is way ahead on, because they are mobile.
My office mate passed away a few weeks ago. He and I shared a long term appreciation for Apple products and always looked forward to the WWDC. This will be the first WWDC without him.
RIP Doug. May the Mac be with you.
Condolences on your Apple appreciating friend’s passing.
Very sorry for your loss.
Doug is probably chatting with Steve as we speak. 🙂
The atheists were triggered by that comment.
Triggered to an eye-roll, perhaps.
WWDC is typically focused on the software but hopefully they will have some hardware updates.
I expect a flurry of more cries for mutiny from even more disenchanted Apple customers after Pipeline T’s next “Homáge To Morpheus” tomorrow.
There were no leaks this time, after Tim Cook implemented a lockdown in Cupertino to thwart the thieves of surprise — killjoys who would steal the thunder of tech demigods.
As a result, we don’t know what they will announce.. and we like it better that way — what’s the point of strutting on stage and pulling back the curtain with a grand flourish, if everyone already knows what’s behind it?
Cook will as usual open the show to brag about Apple’s numbers for the benefit of WS beancounters, grifters and kiters. After that obbligato, he would be well-advised to yield the stage to Phil Schiller, Craig Federighi, etc. They come off as more authentic.
It’s just an educated guess based on his track record so far, hope I’m wrong.
MDN, and you wonder why we want ad blockers! Dagnabbedit, I can’t comment on article because ads keep covering it on my iPad. So, my comment is, blah blah blah. Fix this mess, MDN.
Relatively newer iPads have Apple store apps with the ability to block such nonsense. I grow less responsive to the white list pleas and begging to look at ads I will never click on, that cause pages to load slower and clutter up the precious real estate. A lose-lose for users and ultimately for advertisers who only alienate by their invasive intrusion.
For someone as outraged as this site gets at other user injustices he’s sure tone deaf to this one. (At the same time one has to make a living to continue somehow.)
Note to MDN webmaster:
I am on an iPad Pro with the latest SW applied and this site is commonly almost unuseable – even on your app because of the ad load on either a fast Comcast Cable Blast connection or a Verizon LTE connection. I see ads covering content, I see unstable comment boxes and other stuff I do not see on any other website.
I would suggest you offer a subscription ad free service such as Apple Insider does. Users can opt for free and ads or subscribed without ads. As someone who hates advertising, I would have no problem with it.
Bottom line: your website is damn near unuseable do to some very aggressively placed web ads.
I second that, I’d pay at least a couple bucks a month.
As would I.
While my art is my church, the WWDC (or any other streamed Apple event) is my chapel.