Siri

Siri Sucks, Even By Apple’s Numbers

The Wall Street Journal’s technology columnist Joanna Stern interviewed Apple software chief Craig Federighi (watch the interview) ahead of the Apple Intelligence launch. It is a good chat, but one bit caught my attention:

Joanna: Siri was introduced 13 years ago, which is kind of hard to believe. Is Siri gonna finally live up to that promise?

Craig: The journey never ends. Siri processed today, I think it’s something like 1.5 billion requests every day.

If my memory serves me correctly, it’s roughly the same number Apple shared during the WWDC keynote. So, essentially flat. While 1.5 billion might appear big, when it comes to internet scale, it isn’t such a large number for a company the size of Apple. I looked up the number of active Apple devices. That number is estimated to be 2.2 billion devices — I assume this includes phones, computers, watches, headphones, TV-streaming devices, and

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Waiting for Apple’s Intelligence

Apple Intelligence won’t actually launch until about five days after the new iPad hits stores on Oct. 23.

The bigger obstacle is that the first Apple Intelligence features are underwhelming – with the more impressive capabilities coming later.At the start, the signature feature will be notification summaries. These can be quite helpful – if they’re accurate – but they lack the wow factor of competitors’ offerings. Compared with the latest fare from Google, OpenAl and Meta Platforms Inc., Apple’s Al is still far behind.

Even some internal studies at Apple reflect this, I’m told. The research found that OpenAl’s ChatGPT was 25% more accurate than Apple’s Siri, and able to answer 30% more questions. In fact, some at Apple believe that its generative Al technology – at least, so far – is more than two years behind the industry leaders.

Bloomberg

Apple’s “intelligence” can’t come fast enough. Remember the fanfare

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Apple + AI: What to Expect at WWDC 2024

Google and Microsoft have already shared their plans for integrating AI into their products. Now, it’s Apple’s turn. If the rumors are even remotely true, Apple will present a more pragmatic and user-centric strategy at WWDC 2024 next week. A widely cited Bloomberg news report suggests these features:

  • Project Greymatter will likely introduce a suite of AI tools integrated into core applications such as Safari, Photos, and Notes, along with enhanced notifications in iOS 18 and macOS 15. Processing will take place on-device for less intensive tasks and in the cloud for more complex ones. The “Greymatter Catch-up” feature will offer recaps of recent notifications through Siri.
  • AI enhancements are poised to enhance web searches in Safari, making them quicker and more dependable. Safari is also expected to include summaries, similar to a feature currently available in the upstart Arc Browser.
  • AI features include voice memo transcription, AI-powered photo retouching,

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What’s Worth Reading: Thanksgiving Weekend Edition

I returned from a quick trip to London on the day of Thanksgiving, thus missing the bonhomie of the weekend. While I did miss the slices of pie, it was good to spend the time watching The Silence of Water on PBS Masterpiece (via Amazon Prime.) The Italian crime show is beautiful in location, cinematography, and acting. And despite having to follow the subtitles, it is worth binging. 

The show was an excellent way to stay away from the incessant come-hither siren call of Black Friday — a disease that has also spread to the United Kingdom. I used the opportunity to stock up on memory cards, but that’s all. For the rest of America — despite economic doldrums, it seems to be the season of shop till you drop. I call this the consumerism curse.

The long weekend was also a good time to reflect and read. 

What I am reading: 

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A Letter From Om, My Reading Picks
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Sorry (State of) Siri

During today’s iPhone 12 launch event, Apple proudly noted that its voice command service, Siri, was now running on a billion devices and had 25 billion interactions. “That’s less than one request a day. Does that mean most people don’t use Siri often, or at all?” noted Scott Austin of Dow Jones. I am not sure if these 25 billion interactions include accidental triggers, but if they are, then Siri is in even more sorry state than I had thought.

I have done my best to use Siri for simple tasks such as adding appointments, to-dos, playing music, and increasing and decreasing volume. And whenever I do, my experience has been very hit or miss. It often involves repeating myself. And I am a longtime denizen of the Apple ecosystem.

Whenever I use Google Assistant, it is accurate with its answers, and more importantly, it understands my accent. Many friends

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All About Alexa

Given its dominance of the e-commerce and cloud services, Amazon, not surprisingly, had a great fourth quarter of 2018. I was checking out their earnings release this morning, and one thing that struck me was the number of times they mention Alexa in the press release — 25.

That’s a lot. But it’s not just that. It is how they talk about it. They are telling us again and again; this is their next big thing. It is going to be perhaps as big as the original Amazon itself. It is going to be their real and meaningful barrier to entry for rivals.

It is not clear about the size of Alexa’s ecosystem presence —  Amazon has hinted at about 100 million. In the press release, Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder, and CEO mentioned, that “developers doubled the number of Alexa skills to over 80,000” and humans spoke to “Alexa tens

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My HomePod Review

Apple HomePod, a connected speaker is about to come to market, after being delayed by over a month. It is not the first to the market, and it will definitely not be the most versatile. However, you can bet your last dollar, that it will play music, and play it very well. In fact, there won’t be a sweeter sounding connected speaker in the market. It might sound so good, that for a few days you might forget about your expensive, warm sounding and fantastic vintage hi-fi system. Why do I say all this?

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Mobile, Search & The Continental Drift

Continental drift is the movement of the Earth’s continents relative to each other, thus appearing to drift across the ocean bed.(*)

eMarketer estimates:

  • The number of smartphone users worldwide will surpass 2 billion in 2016. In 2015 there will be more than 1.91 billion smartphone users across the globe. By 2018, more than one-third of the world’s population, or more than 2.56 billion people.
  • Mobile advertising is the key driver of growth around the world, and advertisers will spend $64.25 billion on mobile in 2015, a 60% increase over 2014. By 2018, that figure will reach $158.5 billion, when mobile ads will account for 22% of all advertising spending worldwide.

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