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Apple Working on 'Enhanced Siri' Capabilities for Next-Generation iPhones
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Siri is mediocre and that's being charitable. Apple's asinine privacy stance has hobbled Siri ever since Apple bought it and with Alexa & Google (and even Microsoft's Cortana) leading the charge Apple will be nothing more than a bit player in the market for a long time to come regardless of their "improvements".
To accomplish this, Cook will pull all remaining teams off Mac development because only 37 people work at Apple
That's nice. But increased battery life would be much preferred over Siri Capabilities....
A collection of the world's top-selling smartphone makers, including Apple, Samsung, Huawei, LG, and Xiaomi, are all planning to double down on artificial intelligence features on handsets launching this year, and beyond.
According to industry sources (via DigiTimes), the companies are hoping an improvement to AI assistant capabilities will "ramp up market shares in 2017."
For Apple, that means the company is gearing up to add in an "enhanced Siri" to next-generation iPhone devices, although it's unclear whether that means the upcoming 2017 iPhone 8, or another model launching after this year. It's not specified what exactly an enhanced version of Siri will be able to accomplish, but an overall improvement to voice recognition and better contextual understanding of user requests might be part of the update.
DigiTimes' report specifically references Apple's acquisition of machine learning and AI startup Turi last August as a way that the company intends to bolster Siri's reliability with consumers, "as well as the market share" over other AI assistants like Amazon's Alexa, Microsoft's Cortana, and Google Assistant.
In terms of competition, Huawei -- as the third-largest smartphone maker in the world -- is reportedly ready to battle Apple and Samsung, with AI as a leading feature. Huawei recently launched the Mate 9 in the United States with Amazon's Alexa voice assistant pre-installed, giving users an easier way to navigate the smartphone, and representing its first move in the fight to overcome Apple and Samsung in the AI space.
Google last year launched its Google Pixel smartphone with Google Assistant, and other smartphone vendors have already been looked at to promote adoption of the Assistant, including Xiaomi. In a comparison video that pitted Siri against Google Assistant, YouTuber Marques Brownlee ultimately discovered that while Siri gave him more information, Google Assistant was the more personable and enjoyable AI experience.
Samsung is believed to be launching the Galaxy S8 sometime in Spring 2017 as an attempt to put the Note7 in the past for good, and the new smartphone is currently rumored to include an AI assistant named Bixby, "which is likely to become a main feature of Samsung's next-generation flagship model," according to industry sources.
LG is said to be in talks with both Google and Amazon to leverage each company's voice assistant in LG products, including the addition of Alexa into a collection of LG home appliances, as well as its upcoming smartphone the LG G6.
AI assistants have become increasingly popular over the past few years, and Apple has only gained competition in the space as Siri remained largely unchanged over the past few iOS updates. The company is rumored to be launching an Echo-like speaker as well, which would place Siri as a constant present in the user's home and include the ability to play music, get news headlines, and more, without needing to interact with their iPhone. In response, last year it was reported that Amazon is working on an updated Echo with a 7-inch touchscreen to "fend off competition" from Apple and Google Home.
Article Link: Apple Working on 'Enhanced Siri' Capabilities for Next-Generation iPhones
Enhanced? 10 additional questions possible? Free for iPhone 8 customers, only 1.99 for old customers.
Perhaps there will be some kind of limited offline Siri , integrated into the a11 soc and better mics in the 2017 iphone. Some kind of buffer on the iPhone itself that processes/simplifies input before going to the web/cloud based servers.
"Hey Siri, I hear there are rumors that you're going to be enhanced"
Searching for plumbers that work without a wrench...
Searching for plumbers that work without a wrench...
Super duper waaaaaaaay off topic. That Callaway is still one of my favorite cars. Excellent avatar choice. This coming from a ford and audi fan.
Strictly true, but not the main reason Siri development stalled. A lot of contextual intelligence where Siri didn't improve over the years, while the competition did, does not depend on personal info. And Siri currently is supposed to be aware about your wife, sons, relatives, plus some more personal info.
So Apple just woke up and and started working on Siri. Wow. Several years late. I would have expected this news at least back in May 2016, when Siri-creator Dag Kittlaus showed a public demo of Viv, an amazing evolution of the original assistant.
This. 21st Century people complain about having an internet-connected toaster. They don't realize that having a toaster (when you already have an oven) already proves that you are lazy beyond help!
--19th Century complainer
Ask a stupid question...
Nice to know it's being worked on though, currently for me it's nothing more than a gimmick. My three year old has a tendency now to tell me that "Siri Can't" every time I try to use it. Says enough really.
Well, it does say you share an opinion with a three year old.
(Apologies. Couldn't resist.)
Let me guess: some mystical improvement in microphone technology will finally let Apple do stuff with siri they could only dream of before </BS>
My thoughts exactly. What improvements could they be that require new hardware? Maybe offline capabilities?
Well, only 37 engineers, not people. Apple employees tens of thousands of marketing and sales people.
Yeah got some bad news for all of us.
Because of Tim Cook there might not be new iPhone 8's.
He's not part of Trump's core technology team, but Michael Dell is. Tim's on the wrong side of history now, whether it's right or wrong, good or bad, that's where the money's going.
Good job, Tim Cook. You had one job. Way to kill off Apple.
Because of Tim Cook there might not be new iPhone 8's.
He's not part of Trump's core technology team, but Michael Dell is. Tim's on the wrong side of history now, whether it's right or wrong, good or bad, that's where the money's going.
Good job, Tim Cook. You had one job. Way to kill off Apple.
Siri needs speed and deciphering improvements. Google Voice kills it.
And I like Siri for what it's worth. If they can improve Siri ready by the iPhone 8, I would be excited. Siri is an under rated feature that has lots of potential and is mainly stagnant at this point. Either way, I do think a revamped version is coming. Hopefully for the better.
AirPods needs Siri w/o dependence on iPhone (for at least a limited command set) to use with Watch as the music source.
I don't know about you, but I don't want things I ask Siri to then start populating my website views with ads for the things I ask. These other companies are simply using your inquiries in order to sell your habits and wants and needs to some advertiser or retailer or restaurant, etc.
