Gene Munster Shares WWDC Predictions: Beats Product With Siri Integration, Improvements to AI and AR

[Glockworkorange]

Dear Apple, launch iMac 2018 and I will throw my wallet at you.

The rumors before last year's WWDC were something like "don't look for hardware announcements."

Then they went and updated the entire Mac line.

I don't think any of these people, other than maybe Mark Gurman, know what the hell they're talking about.

Anyway, I'm excited for the software, as I updated all my kit last year.

 

[_Refurbished_]

If they can reduce Siri's bezels, I'll be satisfied.

Also, when Siri doesn't know the answer to a question instead of opening a web page, I'd prefer them to ask the Google Assistant instead.

"Siri, when's my next flight?"
"One second, let me ask the Google Assistant for you. I'll be right back with the answer."

 

[69Mustang]

It's very clear that Apple is not marketing the HomePod as a home assistant. It's about music first and foremost. Yes, it has Siri capabilities but it's not at all meant to be used in the ways the Alexa and Google Home are. Apple hasn't positioned it that way at all.

100% true. Apple isn't marketing the HP as a home assistant. The problem is, from a public perspective, it doesn't matter how Apple is marketing the HP. Public perception says the HP competes with products from Amazon and Google. The HP has the better sound, but Amazon and Google have better assistants. That's consensus from pretty much every review. Fair? Not really. Generally speaking, no one cares though. If the HP becomes a HomeKit hub, the assitant comparisons are going to be even more pronounced.

 

[Techpainter]

This reminds me of all the companies Apple should have bought, but stubbornly always thinks it can do better. Apple should have bought SONOS, they should have bought McClaren (for the Titan project), or Spotify would have been a good buy years ago.

Anyway, they miss key moments that Google and others are taking advantage of. Buying YouTube, and Instagram, among others are one example of buying in, instead to trying to reinvent, and Apple is not learning this, then we end up with HomePods! I've had SONOS for years and love the integration, why would I ever buy a HomePod? Especially now that Alexa is o SONOS, and don't get me started on SIRI!





Ahead of next week's Worldwide Developers Conference, Loup Ventures analyst Gene Munster today shared his predictions for the features and services that Apple will unveil during the event.

Munster expects Apple to debut new Siri, AR, AI, and Digital Health functionality, including a Beats-branded accessory (presumably a speaker) that includes Siri integration, much like the HomePod. Some of Munster's predictions have been previously covered in rumors shared by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, but Siri integration in a lower-cost Beats product is a new prediction.

According to Munster, Apple may be planning introduce a $250 Beats-branded product that will offer Siri integration similar to the HomePod, allowing Apple to "advance its digital assistant ambitions" with a more affordable option. Apple currently sells a Beats Pill+ speaker for $179.95, and the device has not been updated in some time.

Apple is going to announce a new "Decade Collection" at WWDC according to a Best Buy leak, but that collection is limited to existing headphones in new colorways and does not appear include new products or a new speaker. It's possible that Apple does have a new Beats product ready to unveil, and a recent somewhat sketchy rumor did suggest that Apple's "low-priced" HomePod would be under the Beats by Dre branding.

That rumor would make some sense if Apple is indeed planning on introducing a Beats-branded speaker product that includes Siri integration. Siri competitor Alexa is available as an option on many speakers outside of Amazon's own, and Apple could be planning to follow in Amazon's footsteps. Obviously, though, it's not clear if the rumor and/or Munster's prediction are accurate.

Munster has several other predictions for features and services coming at WWDC. Specifically, he expects Apple to introduce new Siri domains, with support for "things like navigation and email" and integrated Spotlight Search to better improve Siri's performance compared to Alexa and Cortana, the AI assistants used by Amazon and Microsoft, respectively.

Munster also believes Apple will introduce new domains for CoreML, the machine learning SDK that Apple introduced with the launch of iOS 11. Munster doesn't offer details on what the new domains might be, but at the current time, CoreML offers features for developers like real time image recognition, search ranking, text prediction, handwriting recognition, face detection, music tagging, text summarization, and more.

Previous rumors have said Apple plans to introduce support for multiplayer augmented reality games, and Munster believes Apple will also introduce "subtle new developer tools" to improve AR development and lead to more compelling AR apps.

Similarly, rumors have indicated Apple is working on a Digital Health tool that will let parents better monitor the amount of time children are spending on iOS devices. Munster says Apple could also include additional features that notify users when data is being shared with developers and new device management features aimed at curbing "screen time and digital anxiety."

Munster's full range of predictions for WWDC can be read on Loup Ventures, and our iOS 12 roundup contains all of the other iOS-related rumors that we've heard thus far.

Article Link: Gene Munster Shares WWDC Predictions: Beats Product With Siri Integration, Improvements to AI and AR[/QUOTE]

 

[WannaGoMac]

Gene Munster — seriously, Mac Rumors? The guy who went on for years that Apple was "just about" to release a television? The guy who would get the color of the sky wrong in his analysis?

If I send you some predictions, will you print them as rumors? Because there's not much difference between that and printing whatever Munster is passing off as analysis and prognostication.

Lately I've wondered if Macrumors has a required number of "news" posts per day...

 

[Mascots]

The difference is the W1 isn't a liability. It works, works well, and stands on it's own as an excellent piece of tech. Siri on the other hand? You'd be hard pressed to find a more universally maligned Apple property. The W1 brings something to the table. Siri...

Well, before HomePod I'd say that, but now that HomePod is a thing, I'd argue it's at minimum a way to increase the value without much additional cost and it really seems like Apple is still driving hard to push Siri as if she was *ahem* polished. At minimum she doesn't bring absolutely nothing, at least in music's domain (or I guess,  Music's...)

 

[mad4erit]

I hope this prediction is completely wrong because it’s so insanely boring....

 

[UltimateSyn]

Are the new iPad Pros supposed to come out at WWDC?

 

[Regime2008]

"Beats, for the wannabe audiophile." I strongly believe it will sound similar to the homepod, with lacking mid-range, and exaggerated bass. Sometimes I wonder what Steve would think if he were still around. I may have not agreed with everything he had done in the past, but he would never let the homepod see the sunlight. I'm confident in that.
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Apple has done nothing to position the HomePod as a home assistant. That's not the market they're going after at all. Did you bother to watch the Keynote or look at the HomePod page on the Apple website? If you had, you'd have noticed that they talked about music for 90% of the presentation. It wasn't until the very end that they quickly mentioned some Siri pieces. If you go to the website, you see the exact same thing. 90% of the webpage is devoted to music and sound quality. It's not until the end where they mention Siri.

It's very clear that Apple is not marketing the HomePod as a home assistant. It's about music first and foremost. Yes, it has Siri capabilities but it's not at all meant to be used in the ways the Alexa and Google Home are. Apple hasn't positioned it that way at all.

I don't think it's because "it's not a home Assistant", but more so because it can't be one. Siri is too dumbed down to hang with the big boys, like Google Assistant or Alexa.

 

[CyberBob859]

Siri on Beats? This doesn't really make sense to me. I don't even think people really associate Beats with Apple. Beats has their own following independent of their parent. One of the reasons Apple keeps the brand running. Siri's kind of an albatross. One that I wouldn't want hanging around my neck if I'm Beats.

I can see Airplay 2 being put on a Beats-branded speaker. Siri? No way.

Gene Munster's "predictions" looks more like his wishlist if you ask me.

 

[TxExCxH]

Gene Munster — seriously, Mac Rumors? The guy who went on for years that Apple was "just about" to release a television? The guy who would get the color of the sky wrong in his analysis?

If I send you some predictions, will you print them as rumors? Because there's not much difference between that and printing whatever Munster is passing off as analysis and prognostication.

Gene Munster, his predictions are always good for a laugh.

 

[Cosmosent]

My prediction, & it won't be Announced by AAPL, just a quiet update that Devs could tap into if they figure it out ... BGR10A2Unorm capture via AVCaptureVideoDataOutput.

Call it CYA, as AAPL should have announced this Sept 2016, when they introduced their poorly-named "Wide Color" / Display P3 ... Phil Schiller clearly didn't have sufficient wisdom NOT to name something WIDE when 50% of the market is female ! ... others with much more wisdom, have RE-named it for the better.

BTW, before his so-called Gig, Gene Munster was the #1 AAPL Cheerleader, so when I hear his name, I always imagine him wearing a skirt !

 

[nviz22]

I won't expect to see any useful features like split-screen multi-tasking, AOD, PiP mode, or anything like that on iOS 12 w/ phones. Sad because that is what would keep me on iOS in the long run.

 

[The Cappy]

‘subtle new developer tools’
Subtle... does that mean ‘disappointing’?
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boring. Hey guys Siri is going to be improved. zzzzz. AI and AR are going to be improved. zzzzzz. Beats Speaker with Siri. zzzzzz.

new macs are what we want to hear about. Maybe iPHone SE and iPad Pro. New OS features too. I heard a rumor we'll find out in 6 days.

WWDC is clearly not aimed at you. You’re the demographic for September. Accept it and stop trying to spoil WWDC with irrelevancies.

 

[lec0rsaire]

Siri will go down as one the highest profile botched leads by any company. It reminds me of Microsoft with IE and search as well as Sony losing portable player market share forever to Apple after decades of the Walkman, Discman and Minidisc.

In 2011 Siri was revolutionary. It left everyone else scrambling to bring an assistant to their devices. 7 years later even Amazon who entered the game years later has made Siri a laughing stock. And Scott Forstall was fired for Maps? While it had a disastrous launch, Maps is actually a great product today.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

If the last 5 years of WWDC's are any indicator, I predict a new updated Macbook Air Retina/16GB, a 512GB iPad Mini Pro w Apple Pencil support, and a user-servicable Mac Mini & Mac Pro, all with current top model chipsets and a One More Thing of an apple 5k TV/display w/ its own external upgradable GPU & dock to bolster performance.

lol

 

[truthertech]

Sadly I’m not expecting to see anything exciting announced at WWDC.

OK, we will put you down for the sad and pessimist group.
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Siri will go down as one the highest profile botched leads by any company. It reminds me of Microsoft with IE and search as well as Sony losing portable player market share forever to Apple after decades of the Walkman, Discman and Minidisc.

In 2011 Siri was revolutionary. It left everyone else scrambling to bring an assistant to their devices. 7 years later even Amazon who entered the game years later has made Siri a laughing stock. And Scott Forstall was fired for Maps? While it had a disastrous launch, Maps is actually a great product today.

"Laughing stock?" LOL. Though Siri is far from perfect, she is by far the most used digital assistant in the world and has hundreds of millions of regular monthly users. She also knows more languages by far than any digital assistant. You're just repeating an Internet meme. For example, Siri on the Homepod can already do what the vast majority of people use their smart speakers for. Surveys show that the most common use of smart speakers is, you guessed it, to play music. Then its to check the weather, set timers and check on traffic.

 

[shareef777]

“Siri improvements”

Well she certainly couldn’t get worse!

 

[roland.g]

How bout before you add more AI and AR you do something that really matters like overhaul the Springboard UI.

 

[SteveW928]

If all they show is stupid %*#$ like that, I'm probably done with Apple.
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The rumors before last year's WWDC were something like "don't look for hardware announcements."
Then they went and updated the entire Mac line.

What universe do you live in? Most of the Mac line hasn't been updated in years. (I guess a couple products were downgraded, though.)

 

[ipponrg]

"Laughing stock?" LOL. Though Siri is far from perfect, she is by far the most used digital assistant in the world and has hundreds of millions of regular monthly users. She also knows more languages by far than any digital assistant. You're just repeating an Internet meme. For example, Siri on the Homepod can already do what the vast majority of people use their smart speakers for. Surveys show that the most common use of smart speakers is, you guessed it, to play music. Then its to check the weather, set timers and check on traffic.

Quality metrics there. If only selective numbers say everything in a behavioral world, then you might be onto something.

 

[truthertech]

Quality metrics there. If only selective numbers say everything in a behavioral world, then you might be onto something.

Exactly. Empirical evidence should guide us, but alas most folks simply repeat something they read on a forum. Fortunately, there are actual studies etc., that show how well Siri performs compared to the other assistants.

 

[Joseph Rash]

I just bought homepod as a gift for my birthday, and my wife thought it isn't worth it, but now she can't stop using it she loved it! I wish if Apple will release something cheaper like homepod so I can have one in every room in the house and to be able to use my home kit devices even easier.

 

[L-Viz]

So basically only junk products and no new Mac (mini). We´ll see.

 

[wizard]

How about Siri improvements first? (Or at least simultaneously)

Actually to improve Siri and effectively do local processing they need to vastly improve hardware and software.

Interestingly no mention of new IPads. I would think that an A11X would be critical to enabling ML, AR and related AI technologies on this platform, thus making new Ipads a high priority. Maybe even a jump to an A12 derived processor. Frankly instead of up rating the GPU on the A11X they should consider doubling or more the performance of the ML processor.
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Are the new iPad Pros supposed to come out at WWDC?

Good question!

If you consider past practices this time of the year would not be unrealistic. More so You would think that Apple would be in a hurry to get the qualities of A11 into the iPad. Specifically the GPU and the ML processor. These two things would do much for the iPad, maybe more than they do for the iPhone.