“With the news that Alphabet’s Google is reportedly working on its own answer to Amazon’s surprise hit, the Echo, the digital assistant-powered device market is one that could become one of the next big battlegrounds for the technology world’s dominant companies,” Andrew Bulkeley writes for TheStreet.
“”For ad-based or commerce-based companies [such as] Google, Amazon and Facebook, it’s all about building more precise advertising profiles and the ability to serve up ads. This product segment bridges times when the users aren’t near their phones,’ wrote Patrick Moorhead, president of Moor Insights and Strategy, in an e-mail. “For Apple and Microsoft, who don’t make their money on ads, it’s about extending the reach of services,'” Bulkeley writes. “Apple practically invented the category when it first incorporated Siri into the iPhone in 2011. However, analysts say Apple may be the weakest player in the segment since it doesn’t allow outside access to its products and may not be as adept at leveraging customer information.”
“At least one high-profile startup is already advancing digital personal assistants by coupling them with artificial intelligence. The two developers of Apple’s Siri, Dag Kittlaus and Adam Cheyer, have reeled in $30 million for their Viv Labs, according to Crunchbase, and have already turned down takeover offers,” Bulkeley writes. “Said high-performance computing expert Dan Olds in a phone interview… “‘Maybe Apple buys Viv.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: A full third of the original Siri team left Apple to create an intelligent assistant that would do all of the things they weren’t allowed to do with Siri: Viv. If they’re interested Apple would likely need to throw crazy money at Kittlaus and Cheyer this time around.
SEE ALSO:
Why isn’t Apple’s Siri where ‘Viv’ is by now? – May 10, 2016
Meet Viv, the next-gen AI assistant, from the creators of Siri – May 9, 2016
If a third of the original Siri team left Apple, it wasn’t due to lack of money necessarily, but being restricted in where they could take the technology they helped create.
As a separate company, they’ve been able to flourish. Being bought by Apple would put the restrictions (might not be the same ones, but restrictions nonetheless) right back in place.
Career-wise, these people may be working on their passion, and knowing from experience how their creativity might be limited, they might not care what amount of money is being waved at them.
Innovation by take-over. This is really Microsoft style. Can Apple still innovate themselves did it become a money machine which can only buy innovative startups?
There’s clearly a big bad blind spot at Apple when it comes to anything regarding searching a database, which is what Siri is basically does. The day Apple dumps the lousy search engine at their own website and replaces it with something as functional us using Google instead, I’ll believe Apple has gotten a new pair of glasses and seen the light.
(Apparently, its a great day to be grumpy at Apple).
I want to remind you that Siri was supposed to be a personal assistant— someone that does more than search the web for you. A personal assistant is supposed to get to know you, learn your favourite haunts, identify your habits and moods, accompany you on trips, anticipate your needs. Siri should be mastering your accent, your linguistic tics, mining your thoughts through your words. — Thus, if you asked a question, she would discover your intent and respond simply and directly, rather than give you a ranked list to sort through. But Apple bought Siri and put her off the noble path of mastering You.
Database technology does seem a blind spot for Apple and is turning into their Achilles’ Heel. They could have acquired 4th Dimension (née Silver Surfer) a long time ago, or developed Filemaker in-house instead of spinning it off as a consumer product.
From what I remember reading, Apple’s Achilles Heel with Siri is that it doesn’t vacuum up data like Google. The tradeoff for a weaker Siri compared to Google Now is privacy.
I would like to see more funtionality though, and I don’t think it’s tied to privacy. Such as being able to say “hey Siri, show me my latest note”. Siri’s reply to me is “sorry, you have no notes”, though I have 5-years worth of them. Forget about searching for specific info within notes. If Siri can’t find information within my iPhone, I’m skeptical about anything beyond directions, weather, basic math and calling/texting.
I will say that Siri works very well on my Watch, but I know what commands work and stick to starting workouts/timers and basic facts. On my iPhone I still mostly avoid Siri though because doing something manually avoids time-wasting errors. Siri on iPhone is still a novelty for me, it’s not a life-improver.
*sigh* Apple has contradictory information out in public about Siri’s abilities. It’s also clear that Siri remains hobbled compared to the system’s original abilities and intended functionality. It also has gaps in its functions that are clearly being filled by OTHER similar systems. That’s one reason I’m glad Dag Kittlaus and friends are still at work with Viv. If Viv kicks Siri’s ass, so be it. Just keep the technology progressing.
Siri creator wants to make the world’s best bot
[Yes, I’m a traitor to Apple if there’s better technology out there to champion. The best tech is my goal.]
You’re not a traitor. You’re just being honest and objective. Do retain the right to change your mind, however; especially if the fully-formed Viv is acquired by the Googleplex. A truly superior personal assistant, such as I described above, would be magical and alluring, but in the service of the Mad Hatter, disastrous.
NO. Dag Kittlaus isn’t going to let that happen again. I suspect he has other plans for the life of Viv.
Yeah Apple: You had your chance with the genius of Dag Kittlaus and friends. Why you messed it up, I’ll never know.
The future is on the way. Siri is more important than the iPhone, and Apple hasn’t shown any sign that they understand that. Fundamentally, they’re behaving as though they’re just a hardware company, with Siri relegated to a service amongst all their other services. The benefits of owning an iPhone or one of its clones are blindingly evident, but Apple has become sluggish in realising the truly emergent benefits that transform lives and societies. I bet you anything that most all of that huge R&D budget is in labs brimming with more hardware trials, not natural language processing, personality modelling, or artificial intelligence.
Other companies, like Microsoft and Amazon (whose core businesses do not revolve around selling high-margin hardware) are seeing the light and working on the A.I. Meanwhile Apple fiddles like Emperor Nero, his associates wasting resources over at the vomitorium.
Will success spoil Rock Hunter? Will someone at Apple peer over the parapet and notice the massing Vandals? Will someone snap their fingers in Tim Cook’s face to wake him up? I blame Steve Jobs for all this. Apple University carries on with his customer-centric business values and work ethic but it doesn’t contain any awareness of its own disruption from within — something you could also have said of Steve Jobs the man.
I can always count on you to blast open a window I didn’t know was there. 😀
I watched the video…meh. It was very scripted (understandable) and while it looked like it was very sofisticated, it also looked somewhat not ready for primetime. I’m not saying ‘vaporware’, but I see a lot of maturity needed to evolve this to where they see it as going. I can see problems of Viv offering solutions that people weren’t expecting or asking for. The example of sending money to a friend was offered, and it worked through a Paypal owned service…looked simple, but I know that service has had issues of fraud by certain bad guys. So on a larger front, who would be responsible for misunderstandings or fraud or unintended consequences? Viv? The third party vender/service? Apple? or Google? or whomever is using the Viv app/service?
I wasnt convinced that they were ready for this presentation…in fact, several times, they had to ‘beg’ the audiance for a positive reaction / applause.
One has to wonder why Apple with money to spare didn’t let them operate independently in a type of skunk works to see where they could take the technology and then bring in aspects that they could use in Siri and elsewhere. Seems a better use of their assets than buying back shares endlessly or let it simply sit around earning interest. Very shortsighted of them if at least in the labs Apple doesn’t have similar developments in progress and other factors prevent their incorporation to date.
“it’s all about building more precise advertising profiles and the ability to serve up ads.”
Ooooh, I can spend only a couple of hundred dollars so Amazon and Google can serve up ads to me?
Sign me up! 😉
“working on its own answer to Amazon’s surprise hit, the Echo”
I thought Amazon didn’t release sales numbers. Do you even know anyone who bought an Echo?
These same people also thought Google Glass was a hit.
Look at Amazon’s current earnings sheet Echo is a flop.
Lol. Sure Siri isn’t the best, but that’s better than it trying to do things it can’t handle well yet. Sure it has bugs. But it’s not in perpetual beta stages.
Apple Seriously dropped the ball letting a team they already had leave to do what should have been done on Siri at Apple..
out of everything i hear (Apple issues) This is the worst because its the future of all interactions which will be with a virtual assistant.