Apple's Greg Joswiak on Siri: We Deliver a Personalized Experience Without Treating You as a Product

thekeyring said:
In my opinion, Siri's faults do not stem from it's lack of profile on me. I rarely say things to Siri like "phone my wife" and it not know who my wife is. It just doesn't need my personal data for what I ask it.

"Apple stores six months of voice recordings to allow its voice recognition engine to get a better understanding of users" - If Apple's stance on privacy meant they wouldn't do this, I could see there being a problem, but they are storing our queries to improve voice recognition!

I think Siri has a far worse rep than it deserves. I even tried asking it "Tell me about the latest Samsung phones". It gives me web results - the top one was a link to Samsung's website. If Apple displayed only the top result, and formatted it like traditional Siri answers, and not like a web search, people would give Apple more credit for Siri's abilities. This seems to be one of Google's biggest advantages with Google Now.
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That I have found is its biggest Achilles Heel. I use them all or at least play with them. Unlike Google and Alexa, I will ask a question and I will get a result that wants me to look at a list of web results. The others will speak and answer to me which I can then use or ask a followup question. Siri doesn't give me that. Maybe it's the way I ask. I don't know. I just know the output from Siri is frequently out of wack for the situation.

Note: Siri has been getting more accurate but still lags Google, Alexa, and Cortana by a good bit. JME, YMMV
 
chetttos said:
People can't understand what it means Apple's care for privacy. I use Siri every day and it's becoming very useful even though is not perfect, I'm willing to help make her better and stop complaining about it.
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I just use Google Assistant nowadays. It works incredibly well compared to Siri, give it a try.
 
I actually really like Siri and use it a fair amount. I mostly use it to check game scores, text people, and find out where friends and family are via Find My Friends.

I have an Echo Dot with Alexa, which honestly isn’t that much better than Siri IMO. The best part about it is the third party “skills” it offers. Siri has something similar with the Siri API, but it seems way underused. Only 1 app (out of probably hundreds I have) takes advantage of the Siri API!

Next year in iOS 12, I think all Apple has to do is make some slight improvements to Siri (maybe better contextual responses), and give it a fresh coat of paint. Then, just heavily market the “all-new Siri”.

Apple is great at marketing, and they could create some awesome ads showing how convenient and easy to use Siri is. Then they could really push developers to use the Siri API more for their apps, thus making Siri even better!
 
axantas said:
They are not exclusive, but, to be honest, I do trust Apple - it is one of their "key selling arguments", so I kind of believe them. They have a lot to lose if this goes wrong.

I don't trust Google so much though, and Microsoft - don't know...
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You missed the point(ed) of my post - of course they are not exclusive - I want privacy (kudos to Apple) AND vastly better performance !
 
thekeyring said:
It will arrive faster than Alexa, which somehow has been given a free pass, despite not actually using any AI. (Developers must code exactly the queries they would like users to say in order for Alexa to understand them.)
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Not sure of what "free pass" Alexa has been given. I use Alexa daily and she understands what I want done and rarely fails. Siri, OTOH........
 
"we don't sell your data", implying the competition does.

Interesting that Apple management doesn't outright say Google sells people's personal information. That would leave them open to be sued for slander/libel (as in a big lie).

.
 
levitynyc said:
If only Siri actually worked.
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I Actually use Siri all the time. Even though it does have its downfalls, it does have consistency with dictation, and deciphering is usually accurate for the most part. But overall, I'm not that displeased with Siri overall.
 
ridiculous logic. You don't need maintain a profile on a user just to be able to open up a app! Siri play my Spotify playlist. Siri set a reminder for 2pm today (this it can do, just NOT consistently). Siri can you show me how to make Corn Pudding? You don't need to collect and maintain people's personal data just to be able to work with other apps and improve the recognition. Siri doesn't need to be PREDICTIVE, it just needs to work. They are trying to make themselves out to be heroes while excusing how awful their product is. "Well we'd like to give you a great product, but we care about your privacy as well..." What a crock of s.
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macfacts said:
"we don't sell your data", implying the competition does.

Interesting that Apple management doesn't outright say Google sells people's personal information. That would leave them open to be sued for slander/libel (as in a big lie).

.
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and if you don't believe either company sells your data, I have a bridge to sell you.
 
Oh good Lord.... the Apple salesman are really out in force today...

It's like the really annoying door to door sales, an spewing their rubbish...

Thankfully for the consumer and unfortunately for Apple their are some fantastic alternatives to Siri that live in 'the real world', and actually work as you expect them to..

And as for the STUPID comment about selling your data.. well maybe not but Apple are MUCH MORE THEN HAPPY to rake a 30% cut from those, freemium, apps that fill up its store who are only too happy to sell your data....

http://toucharcade.com/2015/09/16/we-own-you-confessions-of-a-free-to-play-producer/

I'm used to Apple being stuffed up arrogant so and so's.. but they don't need to be deliberately naive hypocrites too...
 
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When Siri was first introduced, I never used it because it didn't function well and was more difficult then it was worth. Now, on the iPhone 7, I use Siri all the time to do lots of different tasks. Siri has most definitely improved head over heals from its origination and I can't wait to see what else will come from it in the next few years!
 
Not another Siri bashing thread......

On another note, and only related because of posts I have made in the past, I promise to not post on the next 'Apple has Removed the Phono Jack' thread.
 
apolloa said:
Oh good Lord.... the Apple salesman are really out in force today...

It's like the really annoying door to door sales, an spewing their rubbish...

Thankfully for the consumer and unfortunately for Apple their are some fantastic alternatives to Siri that live in 'the real world', and actually work as you expect them to..

And as for the STUPID comment about selling your data.. well maybe not but Apple are MUCH MORE THEN HAPPY to rake a 30% cut from those, freemium, apps that fill up its store who are only too happy to sell your data....

http://toucharcade.com/2015/09/16/we-own-you-confessions-of-a-free-to-play-producer/

I'm used to Apple being stuffed up arrogant so and so's.. but they don't need to be deliberately naive hypocrites too...
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You doing ok mate? Siri works fine for me. Haven't really noticed any problems. And yes the competitor does sell your data and I'm glad that Apple doesn't. I actually appreciate my privacy.

I don't use any freemium apps actually; it's nice of you to jump to conclusions. I hope you get better..
 
Koudspeel said:
You doing ok mate? Siri works fine for me. Haven't really noticed any problems. And yes the competitor does sell your data and I'm glad that Apple doesn't. I actually appreciate my privacy.

I don't use any freemium apps actually; it's nice of you to jump to conclusions. I hope you get better..
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Haha.. I hope you pay for every single app your phone didn't come with then... You carry on with Siri searching the web for you, whilst the rest of us get the information we want...
 
I'm finding SIRI much improved in ios 11!!! the voice recognition is spot on and her replies are getting smarter. I ask for a weather report and now i get a full report - not just the current temp. She has a new area called SIRI knowledge which gives direct answers instead of web searches. I really don't consider that AI - that's more a group of people coming up with trivia questions and answers. SIR's real power is getting things down. I can ask her to turn the lights on/off/dim, wording it any way i want, and she does it. Alexa requires very specific, and weird, verbiage. SIRI is much more forgiving.
 
Siri still cannot access my local drive for movies.......her dictation is pretty good, but her ability to actually get you information is a bit lopsided.
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shk718 said:
I'm finding SIRI much improved in ios 11!!! the voice recognition is spot on and her replies are getting smarter. I ask for a weather report and now i get a full report - not just the current temp. She has a new area called SIRI knowledge which gives direct answers instead of web searches. I really don't consider that AI - that's more a group of people coming up with trivia questions and answers. SIR's real power is getting things down. I can ask her to turn the lights on/off/dim, wording it any way i want, and she does it. Alexa requires very specific, and weird, verbiage. SIRI is much more forgiving.
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Is any woman truly forgiving????
 
Koudspeel said:
And yes the competitor does sell your data and I'm glad that Apple doesn't.
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If you mean Google, then no, they don't sell personal data.

However, both Apple and Google collect and use personal data to sell ad slots. Apple even bragged about it in their documentation to sell iAds to advertisers:

iads_targets.png
 
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