“Seems like everyone… has a connected home hub you can talk to,” Nate Swanner writes for TNW. “If a new report from The Information is correct, you can count Apple in.”
“Joining Google Home and Amazon’s Echo may be a Siri-powered hub, according to the report,” Swanner writes. “It’ll have a speaker and mic, obviously, and will launch alongside a new Siri API and SDK for developers to tap into, perhaps as early as this June at WWDC.”
“If anything, Google’s Home proved how limited Siri can be,” Swanner writes. “An SDK and/or API will help, but Apple will be playing a bit of catch-up.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Funny, we just say “Hey Siri” and there she is – everywhere and at all times – because she’s on our wrist during every waking hour, wherever we are, in every place, not stuck on a table in one room somewhere.
That said, there clearly is a market for such stationary devices that can be plugged into the wall, not dependent on battery power. As we wrote last month:
Something along the lines of Amazon Echo is what Apple should have done if run by competent, forward-thinking management. When Apple finally does do their version of Amazon Echo (and they will get around to doing such a product eventually) they will rightly be called a follower. The company had all of the ingredients to make their own Echo, before Amazon, except for the vision, it seems.
As we wrote earlier this month:
We’ll see what Apple has up their sleeve at WWDC and when it ships before we proclaim a winner in the race to echo Echo.
Apple is a rudderless vessel navigating a new mobile landscape.
Google, Amazon… hell, even Microsoft are innovating. Meanwhile Cook spends his time overcharging Apple consumers for adapters and storage, creating overpriced, worthless products, ignoring the Mac line, destroying Apple’s reputation for quality assurance, and focusing 99% of his workday on the unrelated advancement of gay rights worldwide!
And we’re surprised he’s copying Amazon, Microsoft, and Google?
Chromebooks just outsold Macs for the first time. As a long time Apple user (since the company started), that news is nothing short of PITIFUL!
What a sad and pathetic life you must have, One Note Joe. Please go and see a doctor. Help is out there.
“focusing 99% of his workday on the unrelated advancement of gay rights worldwide!”
And you can make such statements because you are Cook’s personal assistant with access to his Calendar? If not, you are only making ignorant and useless statements.
Well he is a troll so what other purpose in life would he have. The most telling point is I think the idea that Apple is copying Google and Amazon (not sure where MS comes into it but hey his isn’t the real world) yet in this strange logic Google’s announcement oh do recently is not seen as copying Amazon who originated the standalone concept. Think we can judge by that alone the total lack of even basic objectivity in this (no doubt paid) clown.
You’ve no doubt have already been warned by MDN to knock off your usual clueless hating troll crap One Note Joe from Doofus, MO. I saw many of your posts disappear. Get lost loser. You ain’t wanted here.
Come back if you ever acquire a sufficiently efficacious amount of grey matter compound in order to converse intelligently. So far you’re in insufficient supply.
re “PITIFUL!”…
What’s REALLY pitiful, One Note, is your incessant, childish trolling.
It’s not even “good” trolling.
Get a life.
I miss Zunetang
I think One Note Joe is Steve Ballmer in disguise.
I never tire of this…
Well of course if Apple wanted to produce cheap crap that doesn’t make any money then yes they could make products to massively outsell chromebooks but then Apple, as yet and never has, had a core service like search that makes money only because it is the dominant product in the market. Instead Apple does what it is good at making quality products that earn more money than all its competitors clumped together and puts chromebooks profits to shame and beyond. Unless you can suddenly invent a dominant service to match search and advertising revenues so that making money from computers is generally irrelavent then you’d whole point is meaningless. But then being a troll mimicking a long term user common sense really isn’t your purpose is it.
Walking up the airplane aisle last week, it was apparent who was really winning the war – iPads and iPhones everywhere.
Empirical, sure, but undeniable to this shareholder.
We see what we want to see. Just a few weeks ago on the way back from Amsterdam, the lady next to me had devices from Apple (an iPod), Samsung (a Galaxy phone), and Amazon (an eBook reader). I also was surprised at the number of non-Apple laptops on the plane.
It would be wise for Apple to understand that its limited and increasingly locked-down offerings do not meet the needs of all people. Moreover, the services that Cook keeps pushing are definitely no better than the competition. Maps, Siri, iCloud, and Apple Music are all inferior in ways too numerous to list here. But instead of making them optional, Apple insists on forcing them in front of the user. It takes a lot of complicated preference panel work to turn off the crap. … and now my iPhone reminds me daily that I should update the iOS which has bricked other iOS devices. Cook doesn’t realize how annoying and unnecessary Apple software is becoming.
“Cook doesn’t realize how annoying and unnecessary Apple software is becoming.”
Well, off you go then. Many choices in the market.
Paul’s right, and it’s weird to see rational people disagree with this POV. Apple’s services are not outstanding, and trail the competitors in as many ways as they outshine them.
Oh my god! Oh my god! Apple doesn’t lead in every single aspect of tech!
(although, actually, I don’t agree at all with your 50/50 split)
now i love apple and siri may have been groundbreaking when it came out but alexa and google have far surpassed siri. there’s a certain arrogance at apple and on this blog that just needs to be checked.
Steve was for gay rights also . whats the big deal there? Is it because Tim happens to be gay ? I do agree that Apple needs to come out faster with products- but who really knows what they’re working on .
I have no idea what Steve Jobs’ politics were – as it should be. He talked about products. When he got on a soapbox, it was to take down DRM or Flash.
Anyone who knows anything about Steve Jobs knows that he was in most matters progressive social liberal. He supported marriage equality, he gave full benefits to same-sex partners of his employees in Apple (well before most of corporate America). In that sense, he was the same as Cook.
I have 3 different friends that all have ECHOs in their homes – all 3 HATE it! All 3 say it gives as many bad answers, or doesn’t understand what you’re asking it, as Siri does on their older iPhones.
When I showed them how well “Hey Siri” worked on my WATCH and iPhone 6s+ they were surprised.
with an Apple music subscription , Siri is truly amazing on an ATV4 hooked up to a decent sound system
The New Apple TV sitting in my Living a Room is supposed to be a hub for HomeKit, allowing those devices to communicate with iOS apps when you are away from home. It does not work. My El Gato Eve stuff works fine on Bluetooth but never gets out with a setup IAW Apple & El Gato’s instructions.
Before Apple brings out more stuff they might try fixing the stuff the have on the shelf right now.
HomeKit is definitely a work in progress. However, since the day I got my new Apple TV gen 4, remote access over cellular has worked fine.
I have 40 Insteon switches (connected via the Insteon Pro hub), three Hue lights, and an Eve outdoor thermometer, that all work perfectly through HomeKit. The individual product hubs could use more responsiveness, but they all work.
I also access all these devices from my Apple Watch, using both Siri and the iPhone app Home, to consolidate the devices. Very cool.
It is quite funny how the article spins the idea of Apple delivering Siri-powered box as a “me-too” story.
Ever since Steve returned to Apple (i.e. for the entirety of Apple’s resurrection and growth), Apple has been a “me-too” company. The most successful products Apple had ever released, the ones that changed the world and the way we live, the ones that made Apple grow to become the largest market cap in the world, they were all “Me-too” products. Beginning with iPod (there was Rio at the time, as well as several other MP3 players), iPhone (there was Blackberry, Palm Treo, Windows CE / PocketPC), iPad (there were Windows tablet computers in the early 2000’s), Apple Watch (Fitbit and others), AppleTV (plenty prior stuff there).
The writer is obviously lazy / clueless. Apple rarely completely invents a new thing that never existed. Jobs’s most valuable quality, which he implanted in Apple, was to look at something in our daily lives, some piece of technology, as it exists in its current state, identify all of its shortcomings and then create a solution that will eliminate all of those shortcomings.
As always, Apple did not bother plunging head first into something like this voice-controlled internet box. As with all other products where they entered existing space and conquered it by showing how it should be done, Apple, if they decide to deliver a Siri-controlled box, they will do it right.
We can argue how right is that right in the post-Jobs era (some argue that the Watch isn’t as revolutionary as Jobs-era stuff was), but the point remains that Apple hasn’t changed its mode: they look at others’ products and how profoundly wrong they are, and then come in, redefine the concept and show everyone how it should be done.
It’s obvious why Amazon dreamed up the Echo— same as for the Fire and the Kindle: to capture more orders for their online store. It’s equally obvious why Google came out with their listening post—it maximises their capture of ad-generating data. Successful core business models naturally exert pressure to extend themselves. So, what would Apple’s be? To provide the best possible user experience. In this case I imagine them trying to puzzle out how the eavesdropping “experience” could be, in any way, good.
Apple won’t be saying “me too”, they’ll be saying, “Here’s how to do it right.”
Apple following Amazon? I’d be damned surprised.
Just build “Hey Siri” into Apple TV
People are missing the point about the criticism over Cook’s social justice activities. It doesn’t matter what he is doing. It doesn’t matter if he’s a Trump supporter holding Klan rallies. It doesn’t matter if he’s campaigning for gay rights. When he is doing those things, he is not focused on Apple.
No one would argue that Steve’s focus was squarely on Apple. He had other projects he supported, but he didn’t make a spectacle of it. He didn’t use his position to draw attention to them. And he didn’t spend nearly as much time on them as he did with Apple.
When we see Apple faltering and the leader does not appear to have the same all-consuming focus as Steve, we worry and wonder if he is the right person for Apple. If Apple were riding higher than ever, I may have more tolerance for whatever causes he wants to pursue. When Apple is not innovating the way it always had, I have little tolerance for any activities that take his attention elsewhere.
The criticisms are bullshit, and your “little tolerance” is bullshit. The frequency and length of any statements he has made represent a tiny, tiny amount of time.
And, for all we know, they are done only between 11pm and 11:15, when he has finished his day’s work for Apple.
I currently lift my wrist toward my head and say Hey SIRI… pretty simple. Would I buy a SIRI hub? Sure why not. But with the Watch I really don’t need it.
I really don’t see a need for it though. The iPhone already does that when you enable the Hey Siri setting, and I don’t use Siri that often and when I do it’s usually for personal record creation, like scheduling a meeting, setting an alarm, task, or reminder.
The only thing I ever ask Siri that I’d care to have the rest of the house hear is when I ask what movies are playing, and if the device doesn’t have a screen to play previews then what’s the point? I can already just bring it up on my phone and AirPlay it to the Apple TV.
If it’s just in the house it’s entirely pointless, every room in my house already has Siri, not to mention we both have Apple Watches so carry Siri around on our wrists. I highly doubt Apple will create a physical product for something that just needs to be a digital service, unless it’s simply to target the idiots who think the Amazon Echo is a unique and necessary product, which is probably like less than 1% of Apple customers.
Would I interact with a device that I know is tracking my behavior and feeding it to market analysts? Hell no!
I tip my hat to Amazon in particular for leaping into the field. I also find many smartphone users talking to their phones for the same purpose. But I am used to all the contortions required to maintain one’s anonymity and keep the marketing pests away.
If Apple joins the Talking-Box device market, fine! But what’s I’d really like is for them to keep any and all interactions with the device within the device and not given or sold to a sole in marketing. I have zero use for any result of tracking my behavior. Marketing has nothing at all to offer me from their following my behavior. I’m not their bitch. I’m not a baby who has to be lead to where is rattle is located. I’m not a consumer drone. Leave me alone. I’m far better off that way. Try to sell me something and I’ll send you packing.
Correction: There are no soles in marketing, only souls.