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Former Apple Employees Reflect on Siri's 'Squandered Lead' Over Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant
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I think Maps has been fixed at this point - I find myself using it over Google Maps almost all the time now with no issues, at least in the USA.
Absolutely!!! And when I see them saying,"Siri is the world's most popular voice assistant" my heart just sank. There are so many things you could say rather then CLEARLY unrealistic and not true comments like that. If thats what they think, then what hope is there for the future. They dont need to say the truth, our product is is a cut above Bixby and lagging far behind Alexa and Google. But they could say, we are working hard on improving, we are investing massive resources to bring Siri up to the level that we at Apple and our customers expect. That would be fine. But to say we are number one???? Again, my heart just sank.
In the UK Siri's voice is still awful, she does not speak fluently or naturally, it is just horrible to listen to.
Alexa on the other hand has a smooth and natural voice.
The only reason I leave Siri switched on is so that it works through carplay (and don't get me started on how crap carplay looks!)
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The Information has published an in-depth look at how Siri has transitioned from one of Apple's most promising technologies into a "major problem" for the company. The article includes interviews with a dozen former Apple employees who worked on the various teams responsible for the virtual assistant.
The report claims that many of the employees acknowledged for the first time that Apple rushed Siri to be included in the iPhone 4s before the technology was fully ready, resulting in several internal debates over whether to continue patching up the half-baked product or start from scratch.The team working on Siri was overseen by Apple's then iOS chief Scott Forstall, but his attention was reportedly divided by other major projects, including the upcoming launch of Apple Maps. As a result, Forstall enlisted Richard Williamson, who was also managing the Apple Maps project, to head up the Siri team.
According to the report, several former employees said Williamson made a number of decisions that the rest of the Siri team disagreed with, including a plan to improve the assistant's capabilities only once a year.
Williamson, in an emailed response to the report, wrote that it's "completely untrue" that he decided Siri shouldn't be improved continuously.Forstall and Williamson were both fired by Apple in 2012 following the botched launch of Apple Maps on iOS 6. The former employees interviewed said they lamented losing Forstall, who "believed in what they were doing."
Another interesting tidbit is that the Siri team apparently didn't even learn about the HomePod until 2015. Last year, Bloomberg News reported that Apple had developed several speaker prototypes dating back to 2012, but the Siri team presumably didn't know due to Apple's culture of secrecy.The report says that Siri is the main reason the HomePod has "underperformed," and said Siri's capabilities "remain limited compared to the competition," including Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.Some former employees interviewed noted that "while Apple has tried to remake itself as a services company, its core is still product design."
Apple responded to today's report with a statement noting Siri is "the world's most popular voice assistant" and touted "significant advances" to the assistant's performance, scalability, and reliability.The full-length article is a worthwhile read for those interested in learning more about Siri's internal struggles and shortcomings.
The Information: The Seven-Year Itch: How Apple's Marriage to Siri Turned Sour
Article Link: Former Apple Employees Reflect on Siri's 'Squandered Lead' Over Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant
Quote: The most notable failure in Siri's evolution is that it still lacks the third-party developer ecosystem considered the key element of the original Siri vision.
That's particularly tragic in heathcare, where Apple claims to want to make an impact. Busy doctors and nurses simply don't have time to type and a generic UI will be too clumsy. They need something like Siri but designed for hospitals and customized for each particular hospital's policies. That Siri cannot provide.
Siri doesn’t even understand what you are saying much of the time. I don’t see what privacy has to do with getting what you are saying right.
Ah it's you! Right I read about AAPL losing $200 billion in market value because it was reported they didn't hire you as an Intern and are doomed as a result.
Anyone remember when Microsoft called themselves "The Worlds Largest Game Software Company"? This was a few years ago, before X-Box. They called themselves that, in all seriousness, because of Solitaire and the other games included with Windows. Seriously...
Siri comes on the most popular phone, and almost every Apple device. It doesn't mean people actually use it. Or that it's usable.
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"We have made significant advances in Siri performance, scalability and reliability and have applied the latest machine learning techniques to create a more natural voice and more proactive features," Apple wrote in its statement. "We continue to invest deeply in machine learning and artificial intelligence to continually improve the quality of answers Siri provides and the breadth of questions Siri can respond to."
And yet . . . it still doesn't work well. That is why they won't be the most popular voice assistant for long unless they fix Siri.
And yet . . . it still doesn't work well. That is why they won't be the most popular voice assistant for long unless they fix Siri.
My "Am I missing something" was intended as a rhetorical statement, but you've got a good observation. Apple leadership is not dumb (in spite of what it might appear at times ) so we should assume they are actively working to improve Siri. I'm just less convinced that privacy is the biggest roadblock.
Someone else on this forum commented that both Amazon and Google have data centers suitable for processing the massive amount of data necessary to support their respective assistants, but we know that Apple (for the most part) still rents a lot of processing capacity while they build out their own. Could it be something as simple as not having the back-end resources to support a more 'intelligent' assistant? Just a thought....
Finally someone who gets the point. Siri will become better when both or either two of these conditions are met:
Apple becomes more like Google, in collection and processing of data.
Apple somehow realizes how to collect and process your data without violating your privacy.
Which means, we will be stuck with relatively Dumb Siri for foreseeable future, as I do not see anything of this changing anytime soon. Maybe if Tim Cook resigns or get fired, and we get some new CEO who doesn't give a slightest damn about the privacy.
This is yet another time Apple is doing completely different from what others are doing. While others are maintaining the sort of "all your data are belong to us" policy, Apple is making their macOS and iOS like heavily guarded fortresses. Which, to be fair, started with Steve Jobs, this is just strong continuation of that same policy.
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While we all agree that Siri is ... less than great, I'm not sure "Siri is the world's most popular voice assistant" is an inaccurate statement. For most consumers it may be the ONLY voice assistant they have. Here's a breakdown using small numbers to keep the math simple.
Devices with Siri: 1000
Devices with Alexa: 500
Devices with Google: 500
Devices with Something Else: 250
I don't claim to know the actual scale, but assuming it's not totally off... then if more than half of the Apple device owners have used Siri at some point it really IS the most popular. Sure, that's a marketing spin on things, but it's still potentially accurate.
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Great points! I suspect that the future will be based on the second option. Apple will have to learn how to anonymize data on a per-user basis so that MY data gets sent for processing without any practical traceability back to me. Is that even possible though? Only time will tell.
I have observed elsewhere that IMO privacy is not the biggest roadblock for Siri (though it most certainly is a major contributor), but at some point the royal 'we' - consumers - will collectively agree to give up our privacy in exchange for functionality and convenience. That will be a sad day, but I predict it's coming.
They have achieved some nice results with differential privacy that Health app is using. I do not what is the problem with Siri, though, maybe the nature of how the data is processed in that way cannot work for Siri? Dunno, but they might make Siri better with differential privacy.
Someone may have referenced it by the action and I didn't catch it, but wasn't there a point when Siri was... different? I thought I remember a point in which she was more sarcastic and had more responses to things. Then there was a day where she was "optimized" and it was like her soul was wiped from the server. Her voice has improved a lot since then, but it seems like she understands less.
There's an article that Stratechery wrote in 2016 that still holds up well and explains some of the issues that Apple has with scaling services: https://stratechery.com/2016/apples-organizational-crossroads.
It's quite a good read because it seems The Information seems to support some of its thoughts a year and some change later.
It's quite a good read because it seems The Information seems to support some of its thoughts a year and some change later.
They will still be 'most popular' just because it will be on everything they sell. Most usable? Not at all much... It's funny too, because I thought their 'Voice Command' system worked a hell of a lot better than Siri. I mean, I'm with the comedian that joked that Siri and his ex-wife have a lot in common, neither one of them ever listen to him, and they get everything wrong.
Personally, Apple is suffering from the Job's complex. They revere Steve so much that they are willing to sacrifice other employees on the altar. I personally think they are afraid of someone new coming up the ranks of Apple with a vision, a passion for the unexpected and making it work. Every time something is promising, it is butchered and neutered where it does nothing and Apple touts is "courage", "magical" ad-naseum. The bureaucrats have successfully made Apple a no-risk safe company. With the size and scope of Apple, there is no reasonable reason for them not to make Siri the best and blow Alexa and Google out of the water. They are choosing NOT to. And that choice is being made by being afraid of a new Steve Jobs type person rising from the core of Apple. Until they resolve their inner conflict, we are going to get barely beta ready software that they will tout as "revolutionary." My 2 pennies worth.
I hope Apple has some department tucked away in a hollowed out mountain beneath an old Swiss cathedral with a thousand researchers and programmers working diligently on an actual worthwhile future-ready Ai.
Because if the current Siri teams and their output are all they have, they're in deep and worsening trouble the longer it goes on.
Because if the current Siri teams and their output are all they have, they're in deep and worsening trouble the longer it goes on.
If that is the case, remove Siri then. What is the point of having it and advertising a feature when people can't use it?
Well, thats the thing. Siri is being compared to and asked to do things it isnt and wont ever be capable of doing. Secondary skills for Alexa and Google like answering questions, playing music, sending a text, directions, are Siri's MAIN capabilities. Alexa is best and my main uses are turning on plugs, turning on lights, adjusting light color and brightness, locking and unlocking doors, controlling thermostat, in other words controlling your smart home. How many plugs, lights, locks etc are there from different companies. Its a very crowded marketplace and I have products from 4 different companies. My echo works flawlessly with all of them. Apple cant do that. They could start making lights, locks, thermostats, but that isnt what Apple is good at. and I'm fine with that. I really dont want Apple to relax their privacy standards so they can make Siri better.
I have to say it would have been great if I could say "Hey Siri" to my phone and control all the above things I mentioned as flawlessly as it works with Alexa and my Echo.......but then the Iphone wouldnt be the product it is. It wouldnt be the secure product I demand it to be.
We have no way of knowing what's going on on the back end, though, do we? Surely not every change to Siri comes along with an iOS update.
Actually I’ve found that HomeKit works better, more reliably, and more securely than the Echo’s smart home capabilities. Since Echo routes all of its HA commands through the internet it relies on a lot of services working - one time I couldn’t control my lights with Alexa for two weeks because the manufacturer of my Z-wave bridge had a server problem, and if that company ever goes under (as HA companies often do) that means it will stop working with Alexa forever.
There are also deeper and more extensive voice commands for HA applications (for instance on Siri I can ask what the humidity is from my thermostat or what the battery level on my robot vacuum is, can’t do that on Echo). HomeKit also has amazingly reliable occupancy status detection/integration through iOS, which is huge for anyone who takes home automation seriously.
Most people who claim Amazon has better smarthome integration think that because it supports more vendors’ devices - but if you’re a little tech savvy that is the exact opposite of the truth. The HomeBridge project has over 1000 plugins for different devices compared to Amazon’s ~400.
Siri sucks for a lot of reasons but its smarthome capabilities is not one of them. People who make these assertions usually have one or two devices and aren’t very serious or informed about the depth of what you can do with home automation. The echo’s HA capabilities look like a child’s toy compared to HomeKit, which is an actual secure and increasingly capable automation platform.
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