“The competitive advantages on smartphones in the future will not be in the hardware, but in the software,” Charlie Zhou writes for SeekingAlpha. “A lot of people are missing out the real game changer, Siri, and Google should be very scared about it.”
“Siri is a personal assistant app can take voice command from the users and translate the commands into tangible actions. Voice commands on all other phones, including the previous iPhones, are all very basic. They are only limited to calling someone or playing some music,” Zhou writes. “Siri totally changes everything.”
“There are two things that make Siri stand out. First, it can take complicated commands from users that range anything from sending a text message to looking for a restaurant. The app has the potential to significantly save a user’s time on these mundane tasks. Second, Siri has a personality. It talks back and has an attitude. This emotional feature is genius,” Zhou writes. “It builds a personal connection with the user, increases user loyalty to the iPhone 4S and enhances the Apple brand. The reaction to Siri reminds me people’s reaction to the iPad. Many people were disappointed with the first iPad launch presentation, but look at how well it is doing now. Apple doesn’t give us what we want; it shows us the future.”
Zhou writes, “Google makes its money from online advertising… Siri impacts Google by significantly reducing the amount of time we spend on Google’s applications… Siri’s impact on Google is limited in the short run because of its limited availability but as it becomes more popular and its abilities develop, Siri could seriously reduce how much we use Google’s services and revenue in the long run.”
Read more in the full article here.
Why Google should be very scared of Apple’s amazing Siri AI personal assistant*
*If Apple can get it to actually work.
It works and it works very well, since you posted that crap John smith, you don’t own an iPhone 4S, so keep your delusions to yourself.
Works fine for me, it’s of course a beta still.
You bitch more than anyone else i’ve seen. Anything positive to say? iPhone 4S is ONLY the best phone out there an all you can do is whine.
It does work, we have 3 in the family. And it works as advertised.
You must be a Millennial.
On a positive note, many of my clients text and thus I reluctantly text. What a nice change to be able to dictate them within the OS. I’m really enjoying this.
You schoolgirls sure are quick to get your panties all in a bunch. Yes, I own the iPhone 4S – and I’ll wager that I’m a bigger fan and longer user of Apple products than all of you combined. Unlike you, however, my head isn’t so far up my adolescent a$$ that I can’t be critical of Apple products when they aren’t doing something right… And as far as I’m concerned, the sporadic functionality of Siri that I (and MANY others) have experienced since Friday is definitely a problem. Otherwise I love my white, 64GB 4S that I preordered at 3:05AM EST on launch day!
It doesn’t matter: You’re still an asshole.
And you are a achetypal internet troll hiding behind an anonymous identity – like a juvenile. At least I’m brave enough to always post here under the same name and be accountable for what I post!
since I’m a scaredy cat too and not terribly original….
It doesn’t matter: You’re still an asshole.
“online advertising” they left out that part that every tech writer conveniently leaves out about Google.
So, Douglas Adam’s SIRIus Cybernetics corporation is Apple, after all?
+∞
Maybe now we can have audible advertising!
That would be what I’m afraid of and make Siri useless – audible advertising.
I love sometimes too trying to see a very short video clip and advertisers will still put you through a 30 second advert first. God can we EVER get away from ads for which you are not the target audience but must suffer through anyway? When you think how much of our lives we have wasted sitting through such rubbish.
Videos in general — some things have to be seen in video, of course, but I find I avoid videos for the most part.
I can scan an article online and see if it’s worth my time, or if it’s one of those all-too-common articles with 1, maybe 2, bits of fact that are interesting, while the rest is fluff. With a video – many of it just as junky as web articles — you can’t know that by a quick skim. You have to play it a bit, often to the end, and find out it was a waste of time.
Also, with video you can look away and do something else. With audio, for me, it’s all or nothing.
Maybe this’ll be a way that the providers can force a “Premium” version of the internet (Web2.0) onto us after all.
I hope not.
When Google stole Apple’s IP and copied it into Android many people called for Apple to enter the search business.
Many of those people are now happy to see that Apple is finally doing that.
That is just another example though of people thinking they know what they want, but they can only think within the limited realm of what we have now.
Apple isn’t entering the search business–They’re making it irrelevant.
Just another fine example of Apple innovating right around an entrenched player.
Siri is Apple’s search engine, the great great granddaughter of “Sherlock.”
I loved sherlock
I loved Sherlock as well. Used to search everything with it.
Wow! I totally forgot about Sherlock!
Google doesn’t have to be scared. They just have to develop similar AI and tie it into their suite of products. They license connections to Wolfram Alpha too. But when they tie it into all of the information they’ve already collected about you? Linked it to Google Translate? Connected it to Maps and their advertising so that they can read you personalized ads as you approach points on your route? (think “Minority Report”) Google are going to take something fun and useful and make it into something scary. Still useful, but maybe a bit *too* useful. And not just for the owner of the phone.
Difficult to see how Goog could work around Siri and achieve the same result, as Apple bought the company that developed it, and presumably have it patented up to the eyeballs.
Google’s AI? Great I’m going to hold out on any new smart phone purchase until say 2014 so that I can be one of the first users of the Google AI. 🙂
Actually, Google bought their own AI company some time ago. So while, for now, their AI is lagging (and not even present in Android), some time in the future Google will definitely release their android HAL 9000 assistant.
Making a Google copy of Siri, even if they can do it, doesn’t help them, because the concept itself sharply reduces the opportunity for advertising. If they cram radio-style ads into the voice response, I certainly wouldn’t use it. They could perhaps give preferential answers to questions about where to buy something, but that might be more complicated than their current system. One thing I’ve always loved about the listening to music on an iDevice, advertisers cannot reach me.
One important thing that must be remembered: Siri is in beta And that is NOT like Google’s perpetual beta; it is beta in Apple’s (and most other people’s) sense of the word, as in: unfinished, buggy and incomplete. Soon enough, Apple will make Siri a proper, final version.
I can’t imagine now much more fun Siri will be when it finally reaches v.1.
Agreed, I’m eager to see Siri v.1 as well. I’m sure they’ll add more functionality to it in the mean time. one thing I still tend to use Google for is looking up movies to see who was in them. If Apple could hook it into IMDB there would be one less reason for me to ever do a Goggle search.
A reason why Siri is In beta has to do with the nature of Artificial Intelligence (AI): Siri is LEARNING. Every question asked of Siri expands its neural network. And as this happens, Siri’s capabilities and depth will grow dramatically. A rule-based system like the limited voice recognition (which is much different and far inferior to Siri – remember, Siri is AI, NOT mere voice recognition) used by Google currently cannot grow or develop unless new rules are written and more responses input. Siri learns by itself.
Why does this matter? Siri is an ANSWER engine, not a search engine. It means that over time, the very nature of search will evolve beyond being served hypertext links, but receiving answers. If you’re Stephen Wolfram, you’re giddy with joy – Wolfram Alpha will benefit tremendously and grow rapidly.
Google will need to adapt or a ton of revenue will be lost. It will be fascinating to see Siri grow, and as more API sources are plugged in, Siri will supply even more answers. Apple stands to make a fortune on Siri. Amazing.
Apple should buy Wolfram Alpha and Nuance immediately; it has the cash, which Steve Jobs had keep the powder dry just for such opportunity.
While it would be nice to see Google “scared”, that is a very short sighted thing to say. Speaktoit is very similar to SIRI.
http://speaktoit.com
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.speaktoit.assistant&hl=en
The Droidtards don’t care. They already know that Google Voice is superior to Siri. Google Voice has been around longer and runs on many Android devices. It’s not limited to one model smartphone. Besides, the Droidtards know that Siri is just a useless gimmick that a user will only use for five minutes and then never use it again. They’ve decided this because that’s how useful Google Voice is for them. Droidtards are very smart and know everything about consumers that use Apple products.
More recent interview…post SIRI…
Siri: “Please block all ads, notifications and popups originating from or transmitted through Google”