Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Microsoft Pits Cortana Against Siri in New Ad Showcasing Contextual Reminders, Traffic Alerts
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I have a hard time believing that Jen Taylor didn't do a customer voice recording for that commercial. And it is a bit of a low blow using the old Siri voice. There are plenty of ways for Microsoft to show up Siri without resorting to distortions of reality like that. But ah well.
Isn't this the truth. Here is hoping apple cuts down on OS releases and improves on the one they already have in production. Let's get Siri up to par shall we!
So, you're one of those geniuses who likes to waste time clicking refresh to poll for email instead of using push email. Same concept. The rest of us have better things to do with our precious time plus it's beneficial when driving and not being distracted from having to constantly check traffic condition and figure out reroutes or getting caught up in traffic from not manually checking often enough. Unless you've used it you're not qualified to judge.
You can use anything belonging to another company in one of your advertising campaigns as long as you don't lie.
Classic case is Sega in the 90's "Sega do what Nintendon't" whereby they ran footage of Sega and Nintendo games running side by side. Absolutely nothing wrong with this at all as their statement is 100% true.
Supermarkets here in the UK often say stuff like "all of these items here at Tesco are cheaper than at ASDA" and even display their logo. The ad is relevant and legal as long as they state in the ad when that data was relevant and ensure that they don't broadcast it if those prices change.
Your blind and biased if you can't admit that Siri (and ios in general) is lagging behind somewhat in features compared to the competition. However, what this ad won't tell you is that the Windows phone App Store is a desert wasteland. It's got no developer support.
It's gotton so bad that Microsoft is actually giving developers a free Unity 3D Pro license ($1500 value) just to make games for their phone. At the end of the day, a smart phone is only as good as its apps. Everything else is secondary.
It's gotton so bad that Microsoft is actually giving developers a free Unity 3D Pro license ($1500 value) just to make games for their phone. At the end of the day, a smart phone is only as good as its apps. Everything else is secondary.
Here's the difference: on a WP, you can set a reminder at any time "next time I talk to powers74, remind me to ...." then if you call/email/txt me (or I do the same to you), I'll get a popup reminding me about the other thing I wanted to tell you about.
On an iPhone, if someone calls I can get a reminder to circle around, but not if its a text or an email.
The other I think was better demo'd already: set a reminder to do something at a category place (grocery, "target" "starbucks" and it will let any match fire the alert based on geofencing as opposed to a single specific location.
Yeah, this is a really big deal to me. Siri is otherwise pretty good, and this is what it/she needs to be taken to the next level.
Also, I'm sure that if Siri could do that, there would be a version of MobileTerminal on Cydia that would let Siri listen for Unix commands (e.g. "Siri, run sudo rm -rf /Applications/Game\ Center.app")
Cortina is the best assistant out there bar non. And it's rather amazing considering it was good straight out the door.
Imo, in terms of usefulness: cortana > Google now > Siri
Rather sad when you consider Siri was the first to launch.
Imo, in terms of usefulness: cortana > Google now > Siri
Rather sad when you consider Siri was the first to launch.
Siri
I use Siri for reminders non stop. Huge important function for me.
Siri on my IPad air 2 is impressive compared to my ios 6 version.
However others have pointed out that apple is stagnating. Every requests Siri gets could be seen and evaluated. Amazon has a new voice recognition device coming that seems totally useless but they emphasize that it is in the cloud and getting smarter all the time. Siri is not getting smarter all the time.
Unfortunately the kind of hard work to review requests to Siri and figure out how to make them work computationally seems like the kind of hard brute force work google loves to do and apple will not. That is too bad. This is a real and important future of devices and technology.
This same unwillingness to brute force things or crowd source them is why I think google will eventually have the best maps and never be beat. A million phones walking around non stop and we have to centrally wait for some central source to do maps?
I use Siri for reminders non stop. Huge important function for me.
Siri on my IPad air 2 is impressive compared to my ios 6 version.
However others have pointed out that apple is stagnating. Every requests Siri gets could be seen and evaluated. Amazon has a new voice recognition device coming that seems totally useless but they emphasize that it is in the cloud and getting smarter all the time. Siri is not getting smarter all the time.
Unfortunately the kind of hard work to review requests to Siri and figure out how to make them work computationally seems like the kind of hard brute force work google loves to do and apple will not. That is too bad. This is a real and important future of devices and technology.
This same unwillingness to brute force things or crowd source them is why I think google will eventually have the best maps and never be beat. A million phones walking around non stop and we have to centrally wait for some central source to do maps?
You mean badmouthing the competition with FUD?
Presumably you don't buy Apple products either then? Or Samsung? Or anything else with Android on it for that matter. I mean otherwise you'd be some kind of hypocrite.
So... what's left that's worth having?
Speech applications are organic in nature as you have to continually upgrade the grammars to account for unexpected and new user behaviours. Siri was pretty much left to stagnate.
Unfortunately mobile phones are still too under powered for on board speech recognition. A typical speech engine with a grammar the size of Siri requires about 4GB+ of RAM and a mid-range desktop processor to run.
With Siri, your speech is streamed as you speak, so the perceived latency is quite low. Google Now/Cortana being newer are probably doing more advanced streaming audio procedures to achieve quicker perceived processing times.
Last edited:
I've never heard cortana in real life use, so my knowledge is strictly based off of Siri.
It seems like apple is really throttling Siri, presumably to make sure that the things s/he is advertised as doing are the things s/he can actually do well. Unfortunately those things are no longer very expansive, and s/he doesn't even do them particularly well. The general voice recognition in iOS 8 is incredible--I can dictate notes to my heart's content.
But it's still very clunky to do basic interactions like text messages (notification...hold button...beep...what was that text?...you have a text from ____, it says____....would you like to send a reply?...beep...yes...beep... What would you like to say?...beep...[reply]...beep...ok, your message to ____ says____....shall I send it?...beep...yes...beep...ok, I'll send your message)
It seems like apple is really throttling Siri, presumably to make sure that the things s/he is advertised as doing are the things s/he can actually do well. Unfortunately those things are no longer very expansive, and s/he doesn't even do them particularly well. The general voice recognition in iOS 8 is incredible--I can dictate notes to my heart's content.
But it's still very clunky to do basic interactions like text messages (notification...hold button...beep...what was that text?...you have a text from ____, it says____....would you like to send a reply?...beep...yes...beep... What would you like to say?...beep...[reply]...beep...ok, your message to ____ says____....shall I send it?...beep...yes...beep...ok, I'll send your message)
It seems many people on here have forgotten these.
The adverts are pretty similar in style.
Siri is good, but does have a long way to go, and could learn from Cortana in some respects.
Just to jog memories...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B4Z2OY9MQg
Apple was on to something with Siri, it was a great start but why hadn't they improved it. Both MS and Google have leaped frogged Apple with features and ability. Cortana is pretty sweet, I wish Siri had some its ability. I was hoping iOS8 would have brought some improvement. Apple seems focused on other things, but this is one area that they could make some serious inroads on if they dedicated some time and effort.
Just for anyone wanting to hear Cortana:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvxuV78xtDw
She sounds much more robotic than the advert - but still I prefer the speed at which she understands the speaker and her voice is still fairly good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvxuV78xtDw
She sounds much more robotic than the advert - but still I prefer the speed at which she understands the speaker and her voice is still fairly good.
As this is an ad. I believe it is done by the actual actress and not the phone
That would be highly deceptive if true. I wouldn't have thought even Microsoft would stoop to misrepresenting their product to that extent. Class action lawsuit?
----------
Yeah. Although Siri's voice recognition has gotten pretty accurate now (even for my weird accent), the lag between speaking and recognition is quite annoying. Google Now is better in this regard, too.