Sure, you could. If one was around. Similarly, why do you need a voice only Amazon Echo, Google Home, or similar device when you have a phone/computer/tablet/etc?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple VP Phil Schiller Implies Voice-Activated Smart Speakers Could Benefit From a Screen
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Sure, you could. If one was around. Similarly, why do you need a voice only Amazon Echo, Google Home, or similar device when you have a phone/computer/tablet/etc?
Seriously, where do people come up with this stuff? Put out or get out? So 2017 is the year that makes or break Apple? Really?
Reported $265 billion in the bank and $775 market cap as the single biggest corporation in the world thats worth more than the US government and any and every bank in the US. Apple will outlive us all in these forums (and perhaps even our children and grandchildren). Even if their iPhone business somehow died, they could stay in business just selling accessories and Apple Music memberships alone.
And yet some of us are old enough to remember sculley taking apple and increasing profits 8 fold..... cocky at the time that apple would outlive us all..... how did that mis management work out ?
A little research of history .... sees us again getting higher and higher profits off jobs products ...while fragmentation of the products begins. Let's see how history plays.....
If the iPhone business died.... so would apple. Simple as that, as they have neglected all the other lines. I'm sure blackberry and Erickson were also cocky at some point....
Cause a dot costs £50...... per room. And understands questions . The second part is the most critical . Though I lie, Siri understands what I say, it just tends not to have an answer unless it's really basic or linked to something it can Sell me in iTunes.
Um, you don't know the difference between "co-branding" and "Contract Manufacturing." Apple makes their phone as much as anyone besides Samsung and maybe Huwai. IF we eliminated all the products that were Contract-Manufactured, we'd all have VERY little "tech" in our lives.
Yeah, Amazon gets on the board for their crippled pseudo-tablet. But, since you brought it up, everyone but Huwai's numbers were down; but Apple is still the far-and-away best seller in that space. Amazon's unit sales for Tablets (never mind sales dollars) are less than 1/4 of Apple's.
https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-ipad-still-king-of-retreating-tablet-market/
So, are you really glad you brought that up?
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
The question posed/answered in post# 121 was: "Tell me why does a speaker voice assistant need a screen?"
I was speaking of the potential of a video augmented personal assistant and the benefits, with a few examples, whether from Apple, Amazon, or Google. I imagine all three companies (and perhaps a few others) will ultimately have video augmentation, at least as an option.
People say that every year.
I remember last year when some nameless analyst (or was it Theverge?) claimed that the iPhone 7 needed a new design or else.
And then Apple went on to sell over 200 million iPhones last year.
Words like this were crap back then, but they are just full of crap today.
You heard it here first.
When I imagine my dream home, it has an iPad or iPad mini more or less permanently mounted in each room in place of a light switch. From it you can easily control the lighting in the room and with the right authority you can control the whole house. You can use it as an intercom (optionally with video) or even to make FaceTime calls. You could even access Siri.
The problem with this scenario is that the iPad and iOS aren't designed for this use case. A variation on the iPad, with better speakers and microphones, running "homeOS" might fit the bill better. The "lock screen" could feature a prominent light switch control so simply turning on the light would be as intuitive as a regular light switch. The screen lights up when you reach for it. You can easily toggle it to keep the screen on for longer, such as when you are looking at a recipe.
The problem with this scenario is that the iPad and iOS aren't designed for this use case. A variation on the iPad, with better speakers and microphones, running "homeOS" might fit the bill better. The "lock screen" could feature a prominent light switch control so simply turning on the light would be as intuitive as a regular light switch. The screen lights up when you reach for it. You can easily toggle it to keep the screen on for longer, such as when you are looking at a recipe.
What's strange is when I think of the UI for these devices I think about Microsoft's Metro UI for the Windows phones. Live Tiles that update with what's playing, weather, where everyone is, schedules, etc. How strange.
This would've been nice but Alexa is a dumb as Siri tbqh... I had it and it doesn't work very well. If its not going to work very well might as well, I don't need an assistant.
[doublepost=1494142095][/doublepost]
Basically what Phil means is Apple is going to release an iPad with bigger speakers.
Fair enough. They may end up with video augmentation, though I have to say the current speaker setups offered just for audio, are great. It's the AI behind them that makes it great, especially seeing it improve. It does not matter how you present it, you need an excellent source . Many of us have the Classic view of AI assistants to be like Travis or cortana....which is not a bad thing
Don't we have that already?
iPad + "Hey Siri" + Blue tooth speaker...
Too bad Siri is ass compared to Alexa.
iPad + "Hey Siri" + Blue tooth speaker...
Too bad Siri is ass compared to Alexa.
Grom his comments i guess that the speaker will be able to display content, so:
- or it will be basically be a speaker with an apple tv built in. The rumored specs are better than a this gen apple tv(a9 vs a8 soc)
-or it basically be a speaker , that acts on voicecommands, and gives feedback through the big speaker, while displaying additional screen content on an ipad, iphone or mac, whatever you are using that time.
The speaker could have an advanced microphone, but will also use the built-in microphones of the iphone/ipad/mac laying around in the house, to improve the quality of voice input even better.
-or: the speaker could have a smart connector or another connector) , so you can mount an iphone/ipad on top of the speaker that displays content.
-or the speaker has indeed a built-in screen(doubtfull).
- or it will be basically be a speaker with an apple tv built in. The rumored specs are better than a this gen apple tv(a9 vs a8 soc)
-or it basically be a speaker , that acts on voicecommands, and gives feedback through the big speaker, while displaying additional screen content on an ipad, iphone or mac, whatever you are using that time.
The speaker could have an advanced microphone, but will also use the built-in microphones of the iphone/ipad/mac laying around in the house, to improve the quality of voice input even better.
-or: the speaker could have a smart connector or another connector) , so you can mount an iphone/ipad on top of the speaker that displays content.
-or the speaker has indeed a built-in screen(doubtfull).
I think Schiller is trying to double-dip... He's good at what he does, but he's trying do so much to just ruin the experience..
You have a cylinder in your home.... the last thing u want to do is walk over to it to read a tiny display, even when standing next to it, the only reason u'd use a display, would be when voice fails... Maybie u would prefer to see a screen, but then why have Siri ?
Which is why improving it is always better so your don't "have" to do u screen in these cases.
Isn't that what the Apple style competitor is supposed to be about?
You have a cylinder in your home.... the last thing u want to do is walk over to it to read a tiny display, even when standing next to it, the only reason u'd use a display, would be when voice fails... Maybie u would prefer to see a screen, but then why have Siri ?
Which is why improving it is always better so your don't "have" to do u screen in these cases.
Isn't that what the Apple style competitor is supposed to be about?
Except it's not really insight, just rehash of what we already know. We know all the Siri devices with "Hey Siri" capability that have screens, and then there is Siri Eyes Free that is implemented by car makers and has no screen -- though that version often does refer the user back to their phone, so not 100% screen free.
[doublepost=1494156009][/doublepost]
Sure, but if that is Schiller's point he is just restating the obvious -- nothing new there. I've dipped my toe into HomeKit -- Hue, Ecobee, August lock. It def. helps having a Siri device nearby -- preferably NOT in your pocket as that kind of defeats the point of hands free home command.
I haven't found any of the "sources" compelling yet with respect to true AI.
Yes, if you ask simple questions/commands in a structured manner they can provide structured answers, in a very limited manner. None yet are very conversational in a larger retained contextual sense. They're fine for simple commands. We're just scratching the surface. There's a looong way to go, especially with respect to natural language processing, adaptive learning/intelligence, user personalization, history-based understanding and diagnosis of complex requests, etc.
Video augmentation in the future will be taken for granted and will not be viewed as augmented. What's out there now is designed to hit low cost targets and displays make that difficult. Humans, however, have eyes as well as ears. Many types of information, especially those that are complex or where many choices/options are the result, are better served by displays rather than a voice providing many choices over tens of seconds; train schedules, choices, maps (including status, not just geographical), photographs, lists, options, and on and on - results that would be difficult to comprehend aurally due to limits of short-term human memory, or where results are clearly visual in nature.
Yes, a desktop/laptop computer, iPad/iPhone, etc could potentially handle that. But that's far from ideal in a quick access always-on home personal assistant context.
I think sometimes we forget we are human and that means interactions . I remember pre smartphones people would interact on social transport etc. These days .....it's quite sad when you see people glued to their smartphones .... it's like drones .... while no doubt video augmentation will be a force.... it also comes at a cost. If be interested to see the obesity levels , especially in kids these days. Why go outside and talk to your friends or play a game when you can just do it on the phone , phones calls....nah....via social media and pictures . I like my separation of having an AI assistant at home. And thankful Siri sucks, so don't use that.
Anyway, interesting times ahead. In many ways I'm really glad I was born pre smartphone era, know how to fix things and read a map....
sure I can have it delivered on a platter with as little effort as possible...though I like to think for myself .I think sometimes we forget we are human and that means interactions . I remember pre smartphones people would interact on social transport etc. These days .....it's quite sad when you see people glued to their smartphones .... it's like drones .... while no doubt video augmentation will be a force.... it also comes at a cost. If be interested to see the obesity levels , especially in kids these days. Why go outside and talk to your friends or play a game when you can just do it on the phone , phones calls....nah....via social media and pictures . I like my separation of having an AI assistant at home. And thankful Siri sucks, so don't use that.
Anyway, interesting times ahead. In many ways I'm really glad I was born pre smartphone era, know how to fix things and read a map....
There are still some things I prefer hearing. Being a news junkie I much prefer radio over television for my news; NPR and BBC are examples. That's probably because I used to be into shortwave listening in my youth. And I can get my early morning news fix while waking up with my nightstand clock/radio. For me, that kind of information is much easier to absorb than processing TV news. Works much better for driving, too.
OTOH, when asking for a list of local train departure times, there's no way I'd remember a spoken list of a dozen different times, while contemplating which might be the best choice for my situation. And that's an extremely simple example - there's no AI involved with that at all (other than perhaps a bit of adaptive speech processing/learning to better interpret commands)!
Seems simplest to me that the livingroom hub will be an Apple TV form factor redesign. As the Apple TV was already positioned as the home hub. Perhaps it will become screen independent, so then "TV" might be changed to something else, where users have the option of connecting it to a TV or not.
Either that or they have figured out something along the lines of handoff, where the person speaking can be identified and the visual data can be pushed to their nearest device.
However, it would be great to have visual projector, projecting on the ceiling. That is, until we can the hologram version, or tech to project a flat image in open space.
Either that or they have figured out something along the lines of handoff, where the person speaking can be identified and the visual data can be pushed to their nearest device.
However, it would be great to have visual projector, projecting on the ceiling. That is, until we can the hologram version, or tech to project a flat image in open space.
I think this is pretty smart. I can see something like a localized secure personal neural net shared by all your i-devices, Macs, Apple TV, watch, etc. each sharing processing duties and each ready to pass requested information to whichever device is most convenient. Contextual awareness would allow requests like "show that recipe on my phone" as you walk from the living room to the kitchen after watching something from Food Network on your AppleTV.
Yeah, maybe it is a rehash of what we already know. Why should we expect solid news from a top Apple executive in between earnings announcements and keynote addresses? Still, whatever media outlet is lucky enough to get such an interview is going to find some way to spin non-news into news.
Agreed.
The primary focus now seems to be about eking every dime of revenue out of their older products instead of inventing new ones, like in the day of Jobs.
Apple is a great money making company, but it seems to have lost its somewhat magical appeal of producing new and groundbreaking devices that wow people successfully from its introduction.
I disagree. I think if Apple is going to get into the home automation/Smart speaker era, it's going to be within the next year or less. Right now, Google Home and the Amazon echo have really taken off.
There is No doubt that Apple has been working on their version of a smart speaker for quite some time. I think this is another avenue for Apple to branch out in their productline, with the addition of the Apple Watch, AirPods and now A smart speaker will only continue to make sense in the ecosystem, with the refinement of Siri, which they hired a team of engineers roughly a year ago to improve Siri. I believe these changes are likely coming soon.