Try using Siri on an iPhone and Apple Watch and then compare it to how Amazon have developed voice recognition. Apple has fallen seriously behind and it’s only since I bought an Echo that I’ve realised how crap Siri is.
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iPhone XS Max If Tim Cook Resigns. Will the iPhone improve greatly ?
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Try using Siri on an iPhone and Apple Watch and then compare it to how Amazon have developed voice recognition. Apple has fallen seriously behind and it’s only since I bought an Echo that I’ve realised how crap Siri is.
I honestly think it comes down to the microphone array that allows said device to recognize what the user is requesting. Amazon doesn't have a phone or watch to compare to. Would it recognize the user and provide a good response? Maybe, but we have no comparison there. I used to have Echo's and replaced them with two HomePod's and Siri hears and responds to me anywhere in the house, over music. The Echo's would consistently fail in this area and were pretty unreliable when it came to smart home commands. The HomePod software is obviously behind when it comes to random questions and skills, because it is less than a year old. Amazon has been working on this stuff for I think 4-5 years now. It takes time and I expect Apple to slowly open up the capabilities to the HomePod at WWDC this year. Hope that makes sense - I just think it's not really a fair comparison.
It's been a while since I last visited this thread, and the people have spoken.
And I am glad that I am among the majority.
And I am glad that I am among the majority.
I won’t even get into the ‘Innovative’ discussion with iOS, it’s a pointless topic that is severely used out of context. As for stability, didn’t iOS 12 execute those changes for older iPhones like the 6s/7 to perform more optimally? (Rhetorical) One of the core reasons why users were not upgrading their phones this year, was due to the help of iOS 12 with older devices, So what you’re staying isn’t necessarily true at all.
The Hardware sure is one year old, The software,Siri (2012), is older than Alexa (2014)
.They had a 2 year lead, and still fell behind.
Apple isn't the king of privacy. The recent Facetime Group bug proved that. Google does offer decent privacy/security with their Titan M chip. Basically the same as the secure enclave in iPhone.
apple sucks collectively.
Johnny Ive in his run for thinner and thinner devices is screwing battery.
whoever is heading materials and quality control sucks badly with quality control of devices( bending of iPad being latest example)
whoever heads software development screws up with bugs which are show stopper( face time,i cloud to name a few)
whoever handles their chip design rocks( srouji I guess) is doing best job at present.
don't know but CEO is collectively responsible for his executives.
Johnny Ive in his run for thinner and thinner devices is screwing battery.
whoever is heading materials and quality control sucks badly with quality control of devices( bending of iPad being latest example)
whoever heads software development screws up with bugs which are show stopper( face time,i cloud to name a few)
whoever handles their chip design rocks( srouji I guess) is doing best job at present.
don't know but CEO is collectively responsible for his executives.
The Hardware sure is one year old, The software,Siri (2012), is older than Alexa (2014)
They had a 2 year lead, and still fell behind.
Siri on the HomePod is not the same as the Siri on the iPhone. Huge difference at this point. They haven’t opened up the HomePod software at all yet.
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Yes, they still are. A software bug doesn’t change that. Google literally collects all of your data to monetize it. That is the only reason Google products and services exist, to collect user data.
My personal view shifted recently. I used a 6s for about three years and iOS12 made it feel brand new. That said, I was ready for a change (mostly due to 64 gb being insufficient) and sold the phone within 2 days for great resale value considering the age of the phone.
I've been a hardcore skeptic of the X series. Didn't like losing the home button and considered face ID an inferior authentication method. That said I decided to buy the XS to try it out with the intention of returning it within the fairly generous 14 day period if I didn't like it. Suffice it to say I am not returning the device. It is unquestionably the best phone I have ever used. In fact the only minor quibble I can offer is that the notch hasn't grown on me like some say it does. If they manage to eliminate the notch and put those sensors under the screen I would almost consider this the perfect mobile device. I've read they plan to accomplish this perhaps as early 2020. Is it expensive? Yes arguably by a few hundred dollars. But it is phenomenal tech and I imagine many of the haters have not given the X series a fair shake like myself. The air pods are also the perfect compliment to the iPhone and I regret not getting them much sooner. I've used them everyday for the 6 months I've had them. I can't imagine using wired earphones anymore, ever.
Some will prefer a smaller form factor, better battery, and so on but like others have said we are constrained by current tech limitations. We will see what the iPhone evolves into...
I've been a hardcore skeptic of the X series. Didn't like losing the home button and considered face ID an inferior authentication method. That said I decided to buy the XS to try it out with the intention of returning it within the fairly generous 14 day period if I didn't like it. Suffice it to say I am not returning the device. It is unquestionably the best phone I have ever used. In fact the only minor quibble I can offer is that the notch hasn't grown on me like some say it does. If they manage to eliminate the notch and put those sensors under the screen I would almost consider this the perfect mobile device. I've read they plan to accomplish this perhaps as early 2020. Is it expensive? Yes arguably by a few hundred dollars. But it is phenomenal tech and I imagine many of the haters have not given the X series a fair shake like myself. The air pods are also the perfect compliment to the iPhone and I regret not getting them much sooner. I've used them everyday for the 6 months I've had them. I can't imagine using wired earphones anymore, ever.
Some will prefer a smaller form factor, better battery, and so on but like others have said we are constrained by current tech limitations. We will see what the iPhone evolves into...
I was just comparing voice recognition as a usable feature. For me I have a better success rate with my Echo’s and Dot. My watch fails more often than not and I have the same issues with my iPhone. A slight bit of background noise and it gets confused. I can play music and the Echo still filters out the noise to understand me. Until Apple offer a HomePod for £40 or £90 then I won’t even consider it. For me it can’t even get close to competing.
Understand. That’s kind of my point though. I would expect the Echo to have better voice recognition than a phone or watch, because they have something like 9 microphones to pick it up. A fair comparison would be the highest end Echo and the HomePod. I’d imagine the HomePod would perform much better than you expect, but I understand the cost factor as well. To me, the HomePod is built for great sound, smart home execution, and obviously Apple Music playback. It does those things incredibly well.
Is the HomePod yet another Apple product then that has loads of potential for the future but is being sold before many of its features will be utilised on its successors? That seems to be a common theme for us Apple users. Reminds me of FaceID and the promise that has, but right now it unlocks the phone and tracks your face for Animoji’s. It’s almost like the rush to get things to market outweigh polishing the actual service half the time.
I suppose for me I pay for Amazon prime because I use it weekly for purchases and the fact it comes with video and music means owning an Echo makes more sense for me. I cancelled my Apple Music subscription as I wasn’t getting any more from it than I was from Amazon music apart from it costing me an extra £15 a month. I think I’d have to dedicate some serious time to listening to music in order to get my monies worth with Apple but I’m looking at cutting back on my spending with them, not increase it these days.
Not in my eyes. As I mentioned in my other comment, the HomePod is a high end speaker for Apple Music, and a secure HomeKit hub. Along with pretty incredible voice recognition, it is really perfect when it comes to those things. Face ID has been great for me too so I am not seeing that either. They had some rough patches with the X, but the XS now makes authentication practically invisible. I don’t even think about it and my phone is unlocked. Unlocking, password authentication, and Apple Pay are all seamless. I don’t see either products/features being rushed at all. Obviously they’ll be improved upon, but solid from release.
I don’t think any of us have really thought about unlocking our iPhones for years now? It’s such a fast and thoughtless task really. My iPhone is usually unlocked before I even look at it as it’s taken out of a pocket. I’m sure FaceID is becoming as seamless too. I suppose the point I’m getting at is the fact we are not really seeing products with groundbreaking deliveries in recent years but it’s to be expected as technology slows. I probably get the same satisfaction level as those that buy the high end latest products anyway so it’s whatever floats the boat at the end of the day.
I would like to see a few more enhancements on the software side from Apple. 3DTouch and FaceID were the big reveals in recent years and I hope the latter is developed into a useful addition rather than what we see today which for me is an ordinary feature with plenty of marketing promise.
Totally makes sense. It has to be worthwhile for anyone to consider. I listen to a ton of music and run my whole house through HomeKit so it was an easy call.
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For me, Face ID has been a pretty awesome feature, but I can see not getting excited about authentication. I feel like hardware progress has stalled all across the industry (aside from A series chips) and the majority of advances in the short term are going to be software focused. Face ID can be a part of that though, introducing more attention aware features. Honestly though, I’m more to the point that I just want my tech products to do what I need them to. I don’t need bleeding edge features, I just want the best overall combination of performance, security, privacy, ecosystem, apps, and support. The rest doesn’t much matter to me anymore.
Tim Cook is a knowledgeable guy with expertise in many areas of the creation of the iPhone. While everybody is replaceable Tim Cook leaving would throw the company off course and it would take time for Apple to flourish again. In any case the iPhone would not be better off in other hands
Tim Cook isn’t leaving, even if the ‘Macrumors board’ believes he is. It’s not even about the product line and ‘how much Apples stock is worth’, he is much more involved and pertinent in Changing Apple’s environment through change in health dynamics, Green energy and creating growth in jobs with new locations/facilities. Apple is a ‘Tech company’, but they are so much more than that at the end the day with a leader like Tim Cook. People like to Snark at him all the time, and even though I don’t agree with all his political involvement that creates distortion, all I care about is his contribution/efforts with Apple, which _a lot_ of things have changed for the better under his tenure.
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he is supply chain guy,I doubt his absence would make any difference.Johny boy should stop somewhere for his run for thin devices.
he is making bad hardware choice which is screwing apple.
I just got a company iPhone 8 and this is my first time using an iPhone. I have had iPad for the last few months (end of September). I have been an Android user since 2008 and my personal phone is Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact. iPhone 8 is a phone from 2017, same for Sony. I can easily compare them. Let me tell you iOS currently has more bugs than Android and is definitely behind in the features and usability department.
Bug Examples:
1. Huge bugs in the Files app. The app is either unresponsive or it freezes. At least twice a day I cannot save files on my iPad because of this. This is a huge hit on my productivity as I need to wait at least 30/40 minutes for the bug to disappear or restart the iPad.
2. Just today I had Camera bug on my iPhone twice. I could not take picture because the camera could not focus. It would blur the screen and nothing would happen.
3. Safari bug - I cannot write long posts in Safari because the cursor disappears and I can't say where I am typing or what to delete, copy etc. Happens to me every time I try to post in a forum on Safari or to write an email in Safari.
4. Poor RAM management. I don't care how fast A11 is, my iPhone still reloads apps and tabs like crazy. It's annoying as hell. My Android phone (with 4 GB RAM and supposedly bad memory management) keeps tabs loaded for a day! My iPhone 8 reloads tabs every 30 minutes. My Android phone keeps apps loaded for a day. My iPhone 8 reloads them every 30 minutes. And yet the experience with my Sony phone when it comes to performance is not worse than with the iPhone. It's actually better because I don't wait for the apps reloading.
5. Notes app bug. The app is quite often unresponsive and freezes. I had to restart my iPad to fix it. I just don't use it anymore.
Features lacking examples:
1. Shortcuts app is a good idea but brings nothing. I can automate everything but the trigger of the event. For this I need to use Siri which btw sucks. With my Sony phone I can trigger based on location, time etc. With Shortcuts I can't. I have to trigger it manually. This kind of denotes the whole purpose of automation for me.
2. Control center is a good idea but again brings almost nothing. I don't want to disconnect from a certain WIFI. I want to switch off WIFI. I don't want to disconnect from a certain Bluetooth device, I want to switch off Bluetooth. And yeah I need just redirection to the full Settings menu from the Control Center.
3. Settings menu is a mess. I have to use Search for everything. It's so cluttered and not intuitive. Also no I do not want to go to Settings to set up my app. I want to change my app settings in the app itself.
4. I spend 20 minutes rearranging my home screen because Apple vision of customization comes from the archaic era. It would have been good if the phone did not come bloated with 15 Apple apps that I would never use and just waste space on my home screen. No I don't need launchers. I don't use them on Android either. What I need is an easy way to put my most used apps easy at glance. My Sony phone does it automatically for me so I can easily access apps.
5. Do not disturb mode does not support different time zones for different days. Um why. I have one schedule for the work days and different for the weekend. Not accordingly to Apple. I had to spend hour doing Shortcuts stuff to be able to do what I want to do with Do not Disturb. My Sony counter part app is simpler than Shortcuts, offers less options but offers the important ones. I can switch off things the way I want them when I want them.
Overall I could say that iOS is nothing special. My Sony phone does not have worse performance compared to the iPhone. On the contrary. Sometimes it's even more stable and better. And it's 2/3 the price of said iPhone.
Don't get me wrong the iPhone is not horrendous device. It's a good one but for this price I expect a lot more than that. And I do expect less iOS bugs. Sure my Sony devices do not get updated every year but they also do not get bugs every year. Why do I need Apple to update my device regularly just to fill it with bugs that I would prefer to not have it?
I do agree with all of you on the security aspect though. I do think that iOS has security bugs in general (like being able to access the widgets view with locked screen is total WTF) but at least Apple does not gather data as much as Google. That being said iOS is severely lacking when it comes to features IMO and for the money they charge people they should offer a lot more.
Btw excluding the Camera bugs the iPhone does have better camera than my Sony phone. I don't care about this though because I have mirrorless Sony camera that I use so phone camera was never factor for me.
Interesting. I find the complete opposite - that is that I find Siri on iPhone and Apple Watch far better.
Mine has gotten more and more frustrating in the last 12 months. I often get the ‘hang on’ message while it very slowly thinks about what you’ve asked it and I end up asking the Echo we have in our kitchen to set a basic timer. Perhaps it no longer understands a clear and fairly posh English accent? It’s one feature I think they need to improve sooner rather than later.
I have a feeling (well, more of a guess) that because I’ve used Siri for years I know how to play the system, what words and phrases work with Siri etc. However, I rarely get the ‘hang on’ message and when I do it’s often down to a poor network connection.
Alexia is far newer for me. My wife has an especially hard time with it. But then I sometimes do too as she has a kind cockney Estuary English accent
I’ve been using Siri for the past 8 years now to be fair and only had an Echo for 7 or 8 months but noticed it was much better. It might be to do with the amount of microphones on an Echo in comparison to my watch and iPhone but essentially the expectation for me is the same.I have a feeling (well, more of a guess) that because I’ve used Siri for years I know how to play the system, what words and phrases work with Siri etc. However, I rarely get the ‘hang on’ message and when I do it’s often down to a poor network connection.
Alexia is far newer for me. My wife has an especially hard time with it. But then I sometimes do too as she has a kind cockney Estuary English accent
I’ve just been testing Siri out on my watch and it’s been flawless which is typical lol. Not much background noise though and that might help.