Microsoft’s stupid TellMe vs. Apple’s brilliant Siri (with video)

“As with all new technologies developed by or associated with Apple, competitors are stumbling over one another to dismiss Siri,” Chris Rawson writes for TUAW. “Google has already played the ‘yawn’ card, and now Microsoft’s Craig Mundie has joined the fray during an interview with Forbes.”

“Can you really just pick up one of these Windows phones and use it right out of the box in the way Mundie claims?,” Rawson asks. “Not if the results of a video comparing TellMe versus Siri are any indication.”

Rawson writes, “Using Siri and TellMe simultaneously, an Australian user tries to create a meeting, send a text, check the time in Perth, and play songs by a certain artist. Siri doesn’t miss a beat, while TellMe fails every time, often with hilarious results.”

Read more in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Rik Tosun” for the heads up.]

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62 Comments

    1. as soon as I saw that I was laughing through the rest of the video. the windblows phone was a total joke.

      To be honest though, Siri has had a few flubs on inputs with me. nowhere near the windblows phone though..
      Some words I had to slow down to get Siri to recognize, 98% of the time she’s flawless.

        1. Right. Siri will get better as its artificial intelligence is improved. But the TellMe feature is voice recognition / voice command. Microsoft will have to start over, with a completely new architecture, to get significantly better results with voice.

  1. I found his accent quite difficult to understand.

    Is Siri programmed to recognise the accents of different global regions?

    Could a visiting Texan effectively use Siri on a friend’s iPhone in Melbourne?

    – If so, that would be very impressive.

    I didn’t even look at the Windows phone. I’ll assume it responded to every request by opening a WalMart homepage, and saying, “I’m sure you will find everything you’re looking for, on this Microsoft Assured Partners’ ™ website” .

    1. How siri works is that the more you spend time with it and the more other people use it, it begins to understand and categorize the user’s accent. It does this based on voice correction data (the blue underlines that try to interpret words that siri had difficulty with) that the servers collect.

      It starts by using the regional template, but then begins to adapt and learn as it continues to interpret commands.

      A visiting texan could use a friend’s iPhone in Melbourne. 🙂

      Hopefully that answers your question 🙂

      1. oh BTW, if you choose French/German you must be speaking French/German to get Siri to respond.. there is no translate function. I wish there was though.. would be cool to have it respond in German. might be able to learn german a little bit.

        and I hope Siri gets access to a translate function someday also.

  2. Mundie: Siri?! Been there, spoke that. Microsoft invented speech recognition. In fact, next to Bill Gates first dream of using a stylus it was his second dream to have tablets you could actually talk to. It was such natural thing, we figured we’d downplay this feature we’d had all these years.

  3. Whatever this Craig Mundie is supposed to be doing at Microsoft, please let him, along with Ballmer, stay for as long as it takes. If these guys can’t tell the difference between TellMe and SIRI, then as the old saying goes: “They can’t even tell the difference between S### and Shinola (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinola).”

    1. I think the point is that even if the Windows phone had gotten the words right, it still would have just opened up a search results page in a browser. It’s not actually “thinking” about what your words mean, it’s just porting them to a simple text search.

  4. The big deal is the Microsoft exec claimed they have had a voice assistant like Siri for almost a year already. And he said there’s was just as good. So the big deal is watching this video and watching MS epically FAIL at everything he asks, versus Siri which did everything he asked perfectly. Proving once again Apple has worked out there voice assistant versus putting just another voice recognition program inside like MS. And Apple still considers Siri beta!

    1. yep.

      my Google obsessed co-worker tried to tell me that google’s voice-thing (whatever it is called) does everything Siri does.

      yet as soon as I told him My iPhone 4S will be here, he told me he wants to play with Siri.
      yeah, he’s jealous.

      and for Beta, she still kicks the crap out of the “competition”
      Thanksgiving was fun, I whip out Siri and everyone wanted to play with her. Siri understood almost all of the questions/voices without any problems. only two problems came up, when Siri was hearing everyone in the room talk and one person was trying to ask a question.. Led to some one questions Siri didn’t like. or two… “find me a Wife” (asked from my Mother…) ended up asking “who” is my wife lol.
      At least she didn’t respond with Escort services..

      and yes, my mother asked that question a few times lol.
      mom’s getting desperate.

      My brother in law said he wasn’t really impressed (he’s getting a 4S from GE whenever they get off their ass and clear his paperwork..) until I had Siri read a text, dictate text/email, setup a reminder and schedule a meeting.
      then he saw the light. Everything he does daily.. now done with voice. as soon as I started doing that he said his driving skills would improve lol.
      He drives a lot for GE, doing email/text etc while he’s driving. he’s even though of putting velcro on the steering wheel so he can type easier…

    1. Um yeah, me too…messed up I mean. Had Windows 8 running for a while….for development you understand ;-/
      The video is exquisite and it’s gone viral. Hoof/mouth moment for MS.
      What’s with all the provintiality?

  5. “Play some Led Zeppelin.”
    “Here’s your Led Zeppelin.”

    And of all things, what plays? “Communication Breakdown.” Siri, you so crazy.”

    Didn’t see that in the article the first time LOL.

    1. wow.. I just did that conversation with siri that they show in the article, Pizza in chicago, then just say “how about NY” and she changes to NY, but keeps Pizza… then switch to say hamburgers, and she keeps the Miami location.. (without saying i want hamburgers in miami)

      stuff like that makes Siri win by default. it IS a conversation, not just dumb commands. A.I. has arrived.

  6. I think Microsoft makes idiotic statements like comparing TellMe to Siri for the “benefit” of the Apple-haters who will never see Siri in action. It’s a way to boost the morale of Windows fanboys, who are ignoring reality already.

  7. NOTHING beats Android!

    I’ve got an android phone that can MAKE COFFEE.

    B.s? Nope. Fact.

    I connected an android phone to a switcher board that is connected to my coffee maker. All I have to do is say “Make Coffee Slave” and wallah! the coffee maker starts!

    of course you have to preload the coffee and the water first into the coffee machine. And it’s a $800 phone connected to a $100 switcher board connected to a $55 coffee machine to make a 25 cent cup of coffee but hey it’s the fact that ‘ANDROID CAN DO IT’ that counts!

    take that apple fans!

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