“We’re going to see a lot more cool stuff in the tech world in 2012, from quad-core phones to tablets that can talk to slick cloud apps built on HTML5. Startups will show us things we never knew we needed and tech giants will seize opportunities to give us the tools we’re begging for,” Jason Hiner writes for TechRepublic. “No matter what size they are, the smart companies will take risks, be bold, and buck conventional wisdom.”
“The flip side of that is the inertia and inaction that happens at big tech companies because they’re afraid of messing up a good thing,” Hiner writes. “This leads to a lot mistakes, including some that end up dooming the company. Just ask RIM and take a look what’s happening to BlackBerry. Look out, because we’re about to see some important blunders in 2012.”
The three biggest tech blunders destined to happen in 2012:
1. Google will fail to standardize Android: The situation is a mess. It’s going to be very difficult for Google to reel its partners back in, and although Google has made some half-hearted attempts at standardization, it’s clear that Google is much more interested in getting Android devices in the hands of as many people as possible as quickly as possible. The experience of the user once they’ve already bought the device is a secondary concern.
2. Microsoft will miss PC-mobile convergence: Microsoft’s biggest opportunity in mobile is PC-mobile convergence where smartphones will eventually be able to replace a desktop computer by wirelessly docking into a keyboard, mouse, and monitor. Bill Gates envisioned this over a decade ago, but Microsoft is unlikely to seize this opportunity out of fear that it would cannibalize sales of Windows and the company wouldn’t make as big of a profit on each sale.
3. Apple won’t extend Siri across its product line: Instead of getting Siri in the hands of more users, Apple will most likely keep Siri limited to the iPhone 4S, the forthcoming iPad 3, and then the eventual iPhone 5. Instead of using this tool to push the technology world forward, Apple will treat it like a cheap gimmick for selling more phones and tablets.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: #1 and #2 are likely. #3, not so much. Will Tim Cook bring Siri to as many Apple product users as possible or will he use it as a carrot to sell future versions of iPhones, iPads, and/or Macs?
It might not matter. Even if he does the latter, he’ll still be bringing Siri to well over 100 million users this year. Remember: iPad 3 is coming and people upgrade their smartphones rather frequently; contracts are running out on non-Siri iPhones every day. That said, if Cook wants to tack on 50+ million Mac users to the Siri brigade, we’d more than welcome the move. Also, don’t forget, Siri is still in beta (and already seems to be improving). When Siri’s ready to exit her beta stage, she’ll surely show up on a wider variety of Apple devices.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “GetMeOnTop” for the heads up.]
100 million out of 4,000 million isn’t very much
4 billion is the number of people that what?
Mobile device users? No.
Your comment has no context and is meaningless.
Siri is very bandwith and server intensive. As such it will be sensible to run out in a methodical manner to prevent an unresponsive and error ridden performance which would destroy its purpose and reputation.
I have had very spotty luck with Siri, only about 3 in 10 attempts work, and I think it has something to do with the network.
When I am in LA, I get no love from Siri, in the middle of the country it works much better.
Go figure.
Siri is a country girl!
Any application could be ported to any capable platform. Two things, though. It’s not intelligent to do that with any beta product. And it may not be worth doing this year, anyway. Would Siri sell any more iPads? The killer app for iPad is iPad.
Cheap gimmick? No. Five-year plan.
Yes Siri will sell even more iPads and increase the user fun and productivity factors thereby increasing the already high overall user satisfaction.
… While I don’t really expect Siri on “all Macs” by the end of 2012, I do expect it will reach more devices in that time. And become a more mature product.
Tabby (10.8) should debut early in 2013 and should feature a fully-blown version of Siri-for-Mac.
Im in favor of rolling out Siri gradually. Keep in mind that Siri is a thin client on an iPhonw or other device, and all of the heavy work takes place in Apple’s data centers and those of its parrners, such as Wolfram Research and Yelp
That requires processing capabities and bandwidth on a large scale. Add to this that Siri is still learning as its AI engine grows. Unleashing Siri to all Macs and iDevices all at once would be a huge challenge.
All in good time. Siri is not a cheap gimmick. It has a tremendous future, so long as expectations, processing and bandwidth are carefully managed.
It is unfortunate that people are so conservative and reluctant to move into new and better things quickly. It is the ‘gradually’ types that slow the progress of the world and continue to perpetuate the misery of the masses.
Let go of ‘slow’ and embrace ‘better’ quickly.
Umm….(I’ll wait a couple days to finish this comment)
I agree; I don’t think that even Apple’s iCloud servers and bandwidth capacity are ready for the volume of activity that would be unleashed by releasing Siri for existing devices.
I think they are ready but are waiting to build the redundant data center, perhaps in Oregon. Marketing-wise, the only thing worse for new tech than a Doonesbury-type ritual humiliation would be a massive buy-in by the public thwarted by a blackout.
I don’t think Apple’s servers are even ready for the number of users on Siri now. Personally, I find Siri is down a third of the time, completely misunderstands me a third of the time, and works the rest of the time. I’d love to see Apple make Siri available for all devices at some point, but for now I hope they can just work on getting it somewhat reliable for the 4S users.
To MacDailyNews: You shouldn’t be so quick to assume that Tim Cook is the one calling the shots on this.
If not Tim Cook then who?
Cook is the Big Man In Charge at Apple nowadays, no?
Is there some super-secret BMIC at Apple that only you know about? If so, then spill the beans man.
Actually Siri took the reigns somewhere between Christmas and New Years.
You didn’t feel the shift in The Force?
Since his death was announced, all I can picture is Steve sitting, stroking a white cat in a lair under an island volcano.
I can’t be the only one.
Siri should be segregated into local CPU processes and server driven processes. This should enable you to set up an appointment without parsing the message back to North Carolina which not only eats up bandwidth intensive data pipes but is a waste of CPU resources on the DC end, not to mention introduce lag into the process.
1. Calling someone in your contacts should NOT require and internet connection. (BTW, if you find yourself in an area with poor data service, you can switch to the old voice controls by switching Siri off.)
I recall the early days of the internet when many were advocating keeping messages short and not sending photos because they would slow down the internet. BLN’s suggestion is the exact same thinking that would have destroyed the internet for the masses. Local CPUs will eventually become thin clients and the heavy work will be done on the ground with data flying through the cloud.
I’ve been hearing that for decades. We’ll all be X-Terminals, thin clients, web apps. Of course that was only touted, if loudly, by those who sold servers, networks and advertising on the web. in fact the lesson from the app revolution is the opposite: never do remotely over a slow and unreliable pipe what you can do locally on the Cray 1 sitting in your hand with no dependencies at all.
1. Android’s commercial unsustainability catches up with it, the entire platform implodes.
2. Kindle Fire hits the ground with a deafening “splat”.
3. Microsoft wastes billions of dollars on Weekend at Bernie’s-ing the dead Windows Phone.
Siri needs to be completely developed before it is extended to ANY devices:
1. There is no reason Siri should require a network connection to access my contacts, calendar, etc.
2. There should be a way to go back to Siri search results without researching. Very frustrating when you do a restaurant search and can’t re-access the results.
3. Siri doesn’t handle background noise well. This will kill any AppleTV application of Siri.
4. Siri simply needs to work better. My wife and I have had far, far more times when Siri doesn’t work than when it does. At this point, I’m not impressed yet.
you can scroll up in a Siri conversation to access previous results.
You’re not exactly wrong, but…some of us are “not impressed yet” with a considerable number of human beings. What do you expect from a slave, especially one that’s only a year old, give or take a trimester?
Motorola tried #2,the smartphone-into-keyboard-and-monitor thing in 2011, albeit with Android IIRC.
It was not a success.
Good luck with that Microsoft.
Siri will be implemented differently on the Mac. With iPhone, speaking to the device is THE most natural form of interaction, because the main purpose of a “phone” is speaking-based communication. iPhone was already designed for the user to speak to it. It is more natural than touching the screen, and certainly more natural than the old-school clicking of tiny buttons.
With Mac, speaking is NOT the natural form of interaction. It certainly can be one method, but it is not the best method. Using keyboard with mouse or equivalent (such as trackpad) is the most efficient method of interaction with a Mac, for most people. Therefore, Siri’s influence on Mac will have more to do with its artificial intelligence capability, which will get better and more useful over time, and less to do with speech recognition.
Even on an iPad, Siri’s implementation will be different. With iPad, touching the screen is the most natural form of interaction. So again, Apple is NOT going to use Siri’s capabilities in the same way on an iPad, compared to iPhone.
As always, Apple will adapt the interface to optimize the user experience.
Ken1w. You express the situation very well. Clearly, you grasp that Apple’s focus is on the user experience itself, and that that experience informs the design. This stands in stark contrast to the perceptions of lazy, clueless industry analysts and of consumers who care only for our own precious fetishes.
Jason Hiner is a blunder himself.
It would seem that all his posts are based around numbers, but nothing of … value.
The five most important …
The 10 most …
5 things that …
The 10 best …
the 10 best …
10 trends that …
The 10 biggest …
The 10 biggest …
The 10 most …
Kindle Fire vs. iPad: join the debate
The 20 most …
etc. etc.
skylark,
You fly high…
Good research…one of my favorite sites does this too…with arguably more value…
http://allwomenstalk.com/
Speaking of Siri, try this: “At 8PM today remind me to call Don”. She can’t do it. She’ll try to call Don right now. But, “Remind me at 8PM today to call Don” works. Why can’t she figure this one out?
Bill Gates envisioned this…
I stopped reading there. The writer is clueless!
Siri does not use a lot of bandwidth. Your spoken text is converted on the phone using an algorithm (which is why it needs the dual core of the iPhone 4S). That data is sent to the server usually as small as bytes. The server then turns the small algorithm into text it understands, processes the command, and resends the results in yet another compressed form back to your phone where your phone can convert this back to text.
Have you ever seen the data farms that Apple has built? Have you even uses Siri? It takes seconds and very little bandwidth. Those other phones send your data (usually unencrypted) to their servers and send the data back (again unencrypted). And oh, don’t forget. They don’t speak back to you. They just farm your information so they can sell it to their advertisers.
“Bill Gates envisioned this over a decade ago”
Yea, so did a lot of other people including Jobs. Gates was just the most visible one willing to talk about vaporware without having the “vision” on how to produce one.
—- Microsoft’s Vision —- Wait for someone else to successfully produce something. See how they do it, then move in.