“Apple is about to become a much less significant consumer electronics business,” Jon Markman writes for Forbes. “Apple is in the midst of being blindsided itself by cloud-based, artificially intelligent assistants. They’re the future and the rest of the technology world has been ramping up for a while, building out data centers, open-sourcing software tools and perfecting consumer facing software. Amazon has Alexa, Microsoft has Cortana, Facebook has M, startup Viv Labs has Viv and Google has Assistant.”
“Siri still doesn’t live in the cloud. By design she lives on the device and has never risen above being more than a feature on a platform. Apple executives, especially Tim Cook argue that’s a good thing because it protects privacy,” Markman writes. “Siri will never be capable of answering complex questions or using context, and conversations are completely out of the question. So she compensates for her lack of understanding with trademark snark. While it’s cute in a sophomoric sort of way, it’s probably not a longer-term winning strategy. After all, you don’t hire assistants because they’re snarky. At some point they have to be able to do the job.”
MacDailyNews Take: Markman’s assertions simply do not mesh with reality:
“Google Assistant, for example, skims all of your Google services for ways to help you track appointments, parcels, flights and hotel bookings, sports scores, stock prices, traffic on your morning commute and more,” Markman writes. “It builds a briefing page only accessible by you that lives on all of your devices across platforms.”
MacDailyNews Take: Correction: It builds a briefing page only accessible by you and Alphabet Inc. (unless and until they get hacked, of course.)
“By most accounts the next paradigm shift is artificial intelligence and voice. Apple is not built to compete in that new paradigm,” Markman writes. “See you on the other side. GOOG and AMZN remain among the best bets for the AI generation, with Facebook not far behind.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Just getting this one in the database for future reference.
SEE ALSO:
macOS Sierra: The essential guide to using Siri on your Mac – June 24, 2016
Apple’s cutting-edge ‘differential privacy’ is opt-in – June 24, 2016
Conversing with Apple’s Siri in macOS Sierra already feels almost natural – June 22, 2016
Apple’s cutting-edge ‘differential privacy’ offers unique option for technology users – June 20, 2016
Apple’s use of cutting-edge tech will peek at user habits without violating privacy – June 16, 2016
Apple’s Siri digital assistant made Cortana look bad at WWDC – June 14, 2016
Apple unveils iOS 10, the mother of all iOS releases – June 13, 2016
Apple previews major update with macOS Sierra – June 13, 2016