“Alexa has virtually all the market share when it comes to intelligent devices hooked into home automation, and there doesn’t seem to be any indication that it is losing momentum or that its competitors are having any luck encroaching on its market position,” Jason Perlow writes for ZDNet. “But a lot of it has to do with the fact that Amazon’s competition is lame.”
“While Apple has solid speaker hardware that has been praised for its sound quality, the HomePod is hampered by Siri, which is just as stupid and borderline useless now as it was when it was launched six years ago,” Perlow writes. “[Apple]” has plenty of money to buy technology firms that can improve Siri’s intelligence, but there are any number of integration challenges when doing things that way. Money doesn’t solve all your problems.
“Microsoft would be a natural partner in cloud — if only Apple could get past its “not invented here” culture,” Perlow writes. “It would be a total no-brainer for Apple to rip Siri’s brains out and replace it with Cortana and all the back-end services Microsoft has for web and mobile on Azure and Office 365.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yeesh, Microsoft? No thanks.
Regardless, Apple obviously does need to do something about Siri. Hopefully, they now have it under proper management and are working on it.
In the meantime, as Perlow suggests, iOS users can download Cortana from the App Store and test it out to see how it compares to Siri.
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SEE ALSO:
Siri creator is surprised by how much Apple’s Siri still can’t do – March 9, 2018
All that advance introduction advantage, all that money to perfect it and you still have one of, if not THE, lamest personal assistant? Why that would suggest you also have lame management – but that just couldn’t be! Right?
“Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.” Steve Jobs.
No, Apple should not buy somebody else’s technology. That just means that they can’t innovate on their own and they’re buying yesterday’s stuff. Apple needs to invent things. Apple needs to stop spending John Scully style money on R&D with not much productive output.
This is Tim Cook’s Apple, the caretaker CEO.
Siri is dead. I never use it in my language. Google is much better at recognising my voice.
I’m glad Siri is getting this much negative attention.
Devin Prater Assistive Technology Instructor certified by World Services for the Blind JAWS certified
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Happy Easter everyone.
Siri just needs an upgrade.
Bought a couple of Bluetooth light bulbs, no hub required. Went looking for Apple support. Nada. Went to Alexa next, and found it. That right there tells the story……
I use SIRI multiple times per day. It’s not perfect, but it does many useful things. I’d rather have it on my iPhone than not have it…
That said, I’m glad SIRI was taken away from Eddie Cue and given to Craig Federighi. One hopes that it will see big improvements soon.
🤞🤞🤞
This article is simply not true. Nothing is perfect, but Siri on the HomePod works exceedingly well. But yeah I can’t order a new jug of Tide with my HomePod. What a tragedy.
Perhaps true, but I would like to order my TidePod with my HomePod…
For me it is a TRUST issue. iDo NOT trust, Amazon, iDo NOT trust Microsoft, iDo NOT trust Google & iSure as hell DO NOT trust Facebook.
My Hue lights work and most important iTrust Apple. You can have the other INTRUSIVE assistants. Nuff said.
Batting average = 3/4 = 0.750 !
Oh! So close to a perfect season!
Siri is less frustrating when you limit use to very specific commands that you know will work 99% of the time. What is more annoying is Apple’s near vaccum in Homekit peripherals. I’ve been using Koogeek outlets and a lamp adapter with success over the past month, but where the hell is any Apple-branded product? There just isn’t that much Homekit-compatible tech for Siri to fail to turn on (though to be fair it works fine for the products I mentioned, “Siri, turn off bedroom light.”) Goodnight and Happy Easter!
I am interested in how my speakers sound- period. I like flipping might switches and adjusting thermostat on my own, thanks. As long as Siri helps me navigate on the road, I’m happy. Sure, I’d like it to be better and have it prompt more respect but less whining, but in the meantime, it helps. Expectations, Expectations, Expectations. Sure- improve it. Maybe I’ll use it more. For now, it serves me well.
I’m a patient person. I’m sure it’s being updated and will come out with much better features before the end of the year.
Yet in test after test Cortana is the worst of the personal assistants what the hell is this guy on and even Alexa understands commands worse than Siri in other tests. It’s clever marketing of decent enough products and perception that has generated that does it for Alexa and the number of services Amazon have keyed Into her. With all its back end advantages Microsoft has failed abysmally and predictably to match that and if Apple pulls its finger out of its ass it is far better placed to do what it should have done in the first place.
Honestly the best speech recognition for me has been the Xfinity cable box. Maybe it is successful because it is specific for TC content.
Siri sometimes works but my success rate is pretty low. Also she gets upset with me after I call her a bitch when she’s messed up several times in a row.
After so many years and the most efficient processors on the market I am surprised it is not better.
I’ll tell Siri on my HomePod that I don’t like that song after telling her to play the top 40 hits, and she says she will remember that, but she rarely does. And if I tell her to not play any rap music, she still does, and she just seems clueless in the music department overall. If I tell her I like something, it goes in one ear and out the other it seems…
Siri (what a stupid name. Means rear end in Japanese). Siri is as useless as tits on a boar hog.
Ha! Correct! シリ = ‘siri’ = buttocks.
Something tells me Dag Kittlaus has a dark and cryptic sense of humor.
“Tits on a boar…..”. Ha ha!
Sow sue them, they have no gilt! But don’t be a shoat….
So Apple, what’s Dag Kittlaus up to these days? Maybe if you hired him back and let him actually RUN the Siri development department, like you should have done originally.
Then again, the Gee Whiz! Factor of ALL these jabbering digital assistants has worn off. Let’s take another baby step toward REAL AI. That means new creative minds who can break down the walls of the olde guarde are required. Just be sure you get out of THEIR way and let the tech thrive. Only let the Marketing Mavens get a say in its future. IOW: Benefit THE USER! That’s what Quality Capitalism is for.
A sign of hope:
Apple is aggressively hiring Siri engineers after widespread criticisms
…Starting in mid-February, shortly after initial HomePod reviews pilloried the speaker’s ability to handle spoken requests, Apple appears to have accelerated its efforts to hire new Siri engineers and managers. Tens of jobs posted in February remain open today, and more than two dozen new Siri jobs were posted in the last two days alone.
“It’s easy to see that this is a concerted effort by Apple to make Siri smart,” said Thinknum’s Joshua Fruhlinger, “or, at least, smarter than she has been.” Fruhlinger noted that it’s “no secret” that Siri is perceived as a laggard compared to Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Assistant, and Microsoft’s Cortana and has been struggling to adapt to home automation tasks. “It’s clear from our hiring data trail that Apple knows where it needs to improve.”…