“Without stepping foot in Las Vegas or making a single announcement of its own, Apple is having one of its best CES conferences in years, as companies turned to HomeKit en masse to boost their smart offerings,” Michael Simon writes for Macworld.
“While Google Assistant and Alexa controlled their fair share of the CES spotlight, they did little to overshadow Siri,” Simon writes. “In fact, Apple’s HomeKit was one of the surprise winners of this year’s show, as Sony, LG, GE, Vizio, Belkin, Arlo, Ikea, TP-Link and several others all rolled out products and updates featuring HomeKit integration, an abrupt turnaround from previous shows that all but ignored the iPhone maker’s smart home ambitions.”
“When the new HomeKit-enabled products start hitting the market later this year, consumers won’t need to buy specific HomeKit-enabled hardware, an earlier requirement that inhibited Apple’s smart home growth,” Simon writes. “With a few exceptions, customers will soon have the option to use one of three AI assistants each time they make a request to control something in their home, and that means one thing: Siri needs to seriously step its game.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: John Giannandrea to Siri’s rescue, hopefully!
2019 could very well be the year where HomeKit and Siri really come into their own. We’re already getting excited for WWDC in June!
SEE ALSO:
Apple’s Siri has gotten a lot more accurate over the past 9 months – December 21, 2018
AI guru John Giannandrea named to Apple’s executive team – December 20, 2018
Former Apple employees on Eddy Cue: Siri and Eddy were ‘a bad fit’ – September 5, 2018
Apple’s Siri improved by 11 percentage points in correct answers over the last 15 months – July 25, 2018
Apple combines machine learning and Siri teams under John Giannandrea – July 10, 2018
Apple’s ‘personal assistant activation’ patent application hints at improved Siri – May 10, 2018
iOS 11.4 will allow Siri to recognize AirPlay commands – May 3, 2018
iPhone X owners are extremely satisfied with basically everything except Siri – April 20, 2018
Apple’s Siri, HomePod and the voice assistant showdown – April 6, 2018
Apple’s A.I. efforts get shot of adrenaline with Giannandrea coup – April 6, 2018
A.I. defector gives Apple access to Google’s secrets – April 6, 2018
Gene Munster: Poaching AI chief John Giannandrea from Google a win for Apple – April 5, 2018
Apple hires Google’s A.I. chief to improve Siri – April 4, 2018
I have been saying it since august when I redid my own home and made it completely Homekit enabled that the platform is heads and shoulders above anything else out there right now. I like in a 32oosq foot house and have around 30 switched,bkinds, garage doors, accent lighting, outdoor landscaping lighting, 4 apple tis, sonos player, thermostats, cameras and more all connected.
The ability to easily create IFTT scenes in the app is amazing. all devices talk to each other in the scene without any special bridges or anything to the like. For example when I arrive home my phone realizes my location through Siri shortcuts so when I pull in the neighborhood it turns on the outdoor lights, when I pull onto my street the garage door opens and lights throughout the house illuminate to lead me to the main living room. a scene like this takes no more than 10 minutes to setup and can be personalized for who is coming and going in my family etc. this is just one example such as my master bedroom blinds automatically lowering and raising at sunset and sunrise every day.
with all of the new devices coming online the abilities and options are only going to expand but the ability for all of these products to talk to one another without any coding, bridges, extra apps to download etc is simply amazing. Lets not forget that all my apple tvs, and the HomePod act as hubs so paired with my phone and watch anywhere I am in my house all I have to do is say the command and within 0.5 seconds the command is complete.
What blinds are you using?
Must not be married. I installed an IOT sprinkler controller that I program and use from an app. She freaked that she could not just go to a manual box in garage control it directly. I’d have home automation in a bunch of places by now, but my wife just doesn’t want to go there.
I helped someone with this recently and the answer was HomePod and lights for one room. When she starts entering rooms asking for Siri to turn the lights on and it doesn’t happen, she’s hooked 🙂
What sprinkler controller do you have? I have a Rachio and can control it, not only from the App, but also manually from the controller itself. My only complaint is that it is not HomeKit enabled.
And now have to start selling licences of Mac OS X xx to their Neighbors, for example.HP ..
Freudian Siri Slip…
“Siri needs to seriously step * its game.”
Not coincidentally, “up” isn’t part of Sir’s future trajectory. POS technology and critically linked to AAPL’s #1 rev producer.
Well we can expect a considerable leap in Siri’s capabilities probably to coincide with the streaming service, it’s Apples way of doing things it on your ass for a while and relaunch when you can trumpet a big leap over gradual barely noticed improvements. Always worked well before the opposition started to up their game and the mane competitor was a glacial Microsoft or small financially challenged opponents with limited market influence. It’s a tactic/fault Apple badly needs to remodel in this new competive environment where Amazon/Google are quick movers with deep pockets and big brands making Cook look slow and staid by comparison.
So, is Apple going to advertise that “Home” even exists? I dont mind saying that as tuned in to Apple products as I am, I feel I’ve barely ever heard of Apple touting and integration of Homekit products, of advertised their edge, if they have one. So I Googled homekit devices, and the best answer AMAZON.. Totally embarrassing that Apple doesnt have Home Apps abilities in your face, On the website, you either have to search it or there is ONE link at the bottom of the HomePod page. (even below the goofy Oprah podcast example they use to tout Homepod) Just another example of Apples Too cool for a manual attitude. So Apple desperately needs their ecosystem but barely has a suite of Apple branded home products. I’d have bought them, and if I’m missing something it, with Apples lack of advertising, I wouldn’t be surprised.