Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

I don't get it... What's the point of the Virtual Assistant?

marksman said:
"Phone, I need to let my wife know I can't pick up billy after karate tonight and not to wait for me for dinner. Also confirm my appointment Thursday with Edward Jensen and cancel my appointment Friday with Esther. Also remind me I need to pick up some milk at the store on the way home and pick up a prescription as well."

From this your phone sends a text to your wife telling her "I can't pick Billy up from Karate and do not wait for me for dinner." It will then go in your calender and check your Thursday appointment with Edward Jensen and send him and you a confirmation email. It will also check your calendar for Friday and send a cancellation request to Esther and make a note of that in the calendar. As you get near the store on your way home your phone will signal an alarm and alert you to go to the store and to pick up milk and your prescription.

I understand it is possible YOU would find no use for that kind of service, but I can assure you a lot of people would.

Can you at least understand how this is significantly different then search voice commands?
Click to expand...

Wishful thinking. We'll have flying cars before a proper working voice recognition and AI system.
 
Judging from the interview of the cofounder of Siri, he was pretty confident of the impressive potential of the product. It must be pretty legit for apple to purchase it in the first place.This could be how people speculated on what the point of the ipad was...
 
You know what would be really cool (dunno if it's been posted) is if Assistant could be trained to use a certain voice/tone after hearing a few sentences, so I could have my girlfriend/Batman/T-Pain talking to me. Probably not gonna happen, but it would be cool.
 
Bkfraiders7 said:
Imagine it being the first steps to this...which is where were going. (Voice conversation, not the amazing holograms)

Iron Man 2- Jarvis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D156TfHpE1Q
Click to expand...

When are people going to learn -- talking computers / interactive voice computers exist in Hollywood because they make telling a story easier, not because they're better for interacting with a computer.

How would you script a scene where Tony Stark has to work on the computer if he couldn't talk to it? You'd either have to always have another character there so that he can explain what he's doing, or he'd have to monologue the entire scene so the viewer would know what he's typing and designing.

Voice technology is a dead-end tech -- a leftover relic from badly written sci-fi and the dreams of nerdy kids everywhere. It's existed for 15 years and there has never been a great demand or need for it. People still type documents instead of dictating them, and the "speakable items" folder left the building with System 9.
 
My expectations are low. But I know Tim or whoever introduces it will say that it will change everything. Is Magical. And that it's ONLY on the iPhone.
 
marksman said:
"Phone, I need to let my wife know I can't pick up billy after karate tonight and not to wait for me for dinner. Also confirm my appointment Thursday with Edward Jensen and cancel my appointment Friday with Esther. Also remind me I need to pick up some milk at the store on the way home and pick up a prescription as well."

From this your phone sends a text to your wife telling her "I can't pick Billy up from Karate and do not wait for me for dinner." It will then go in your calender and check your Thursday appointment with Edward Jensen and send him and you a confirmation email. It will also check your calendar for Friday and send a cancellation request to Esther and make a note of that in the calendar. As you get near the store on your way home your phone will signal an alarm and alert you to go to the store and to pick up milk and your prescription.

I understand it is possible YOU would find no use for that kind of service, but I can assure you a lot of people would.

Can you at least understand how this is significantly different then search voice commands?
Click to expand...


More likey... the phone texts your wife and tells her you won't be back for dinner because you are having an affair with esther. It will then delete all your calendars and email Edward Jenson and tell him you like milk. It will then start the stickman karate app you forgot you had even downloaded. It will then cause you to drive over billy who was crossing the road because you were too busy looking at the screen trying to work out if all the instructions you had given were correctly deciphered by the phone.

... at least this is my general experience with voice tech, but who knows maybe apple will get it right and people will use it more than 3 times!!
 
Is everyone ignoring the fact that a competing platform already has this type of voice recognition and that it works very well?

Or maybe you just didn't know?
 
boss.king said:
Great factual points you've made there :rolleyes:

The true fact of the matter is that Android voice controls are excellent, so Apple will really have to pull out something great to top it, and I hope they do.
Click to expand...

um... I think siri just took a dump on droid voice controls
 
yongren said:
Personally, I don't think I would trust voice control to do what I tell it to accurately—I'd have to look at the screen to make sure the thing heard me correctly, which would then defeat the purpose of having it in the first place.
Click to expand...

It can read it back to you.
 
jca24 said:
um... I think siri just took a dump on droid voice controls
Click to expand...

Siri does look pretty good, I just watched the promo video for it. I wonder if it can really only run on the A5 though, seems like a convenient excuse to get people to upgrade to me.

I'd be interested to try it out.

EDIT: I wish they hadn't used Stephanie Hawking for the voice though ;)
 
Could Siri run on an A4 chip? Sure, the app that has been out for a while has proved that. This built in Siri does a lot more though and it wouldn't be as nice of an experience. Things would take longer and not be as seamless.

Apple is about getting things as close to perfect as possible. Providing a half ass experience is not their style.
 
RafaelT said:
Could Siri run on an A4 chip? Sure, the app that has been out for a while has proved that. This built in Siri does a lot more though and it wouldn't be as nice of an experience. Things would take longer and not be as seamless.

Apple is about getting things as close to perfect as possible. Providing a half ass experience is not their style.
Click to expand...

That's what they say. Look at iOS 4 on the 3G, it was pretty half-assed. iTunes on Windows too. They don't seem to have a problem doing thing's half-assed when it's convenient, only when it could cut their profits. (I'm not trying to be an anti-Apple retard, I just want to point out that they don't always live by what they say)
 
boss.king said:
That's what they say. Look at iOS 4 on the 3G, it was pretty half-assed. iTunes on Windows too. They don't seem to have a problem doing thing's half-assed when it's convenient, only when it could cut their profits. (I'm not trying to be an anti-Apple retard, I just want to point out that they don't always live by what they say)
Click to expand...

iOS4 on my 3gs runs beautifully.
 
boss.king said:
That's what they say. Look at iOS 4 on the 3G, it was pretty half-assed. iTunes on Windows too. They don't seem to have a problem doing thing's half-assed when it's convenient, only when it could cut their profits. (I'm not trying to be an anti-Apple retard, I just want to point out that they don't always live by what they say)
Click to expand...

It very well could be financially motivated, but you could just as easily say that they learned from the previous mistakes of doing that with iOS4.

It doesn't really matter what their motives are though, if it is half assed it shouldn't be on their.
 
boss.king said:
Siri does look pretty good, I just watched the promo video for it. I wonder if it can really only run on the A5 though, seems like a convenient excuse to get people to upgrade to me.

I'd be interested to try it out.

EDIT: I wish they hadn't used Stephanie Hawking for the voice though ;)
Click to expand...

I don't know who that is, but her voice is kinda ah, I don't know, it needs to have a "hot chick" sound to it.
 
RafaelT said:
It very well could be financially motivated, but you could just as easily say that they learned from the previous mistakes of doing that with iOS4.

It doesn't really matter what their motives are though, if it is half assed it shouldn't be on their.
Click to expand...

Fair enough, I was just genuinely curious to know if it would be able to run adequately on the iPhone 4.


jca24 said:
I don't know who that is, but her voice is kinda ah, I don't know, it needs to have a "hot chick" sound to it.
Click to expand...

It's not a person, I was playing on Stephen Hawking (the man who speaks with a robot voice)
 
Overall, I thought Siri was pretty cool. Adds the functionality that Android always had but it's much more advanced. I like how when you ask it for the weather or something it doesn't open up a separate application, it just gives you a widget type thing right from the same screen.
 
I feel that although Siri is very very cool, it wasn't worth taking center stage in today's keynote What if you were at a football game? Or at a concert? Siri at that point will be utterly useless, regardless of what capabilities were featured today.
 
Kentochan said:
I feel that although Siri is very very cool, it wasn't worth taking center stage in today's keynote What if you were at a football game? Or at a concert? Siri at that point will be utterly useless, regardless of what capabilities were featured today.
Click to expand...

You just gave two examples of places you should not be using your phone anyway.

What if you are in your car driving? Not having people looking at their phones while typing an 800 character SMS... yeah it is a pretty awesome technology.
 
Kentochan said:
I feel that although Siri is very very cool, it wasn't worth taking center stage in today's keynote What if you were at a football game? Or at a concert? Siri at that point will be utterly useless, regardless of what capabilities were featured today.
Click to expand...

It doesn't disable your keyboard, and obviously in a loud environment it would be plain stupid to try use it, that's just common sense. In your car or at your desk or while taking a walk is where it is useful, as well as an accessibility feature.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back