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Nuance CEO Confirms Siri Partnership with Apple
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Overall, I've enjoyed each new iPhone Apple has created.
Oh sure, never perfect, but I'm not looking for perfect, just excellent.
Then came Siri, which I'm still convinced was a gimmick that Apple introduced to add to the hype. It's the only aspect of iOS I find rather repulsive.
It only gets worse if I stop into a local Starbucks to enjoy a beverage, only to have some newbie showing off with Siri, as though "she's" his / her personal assistant.
Much like those people we've all been exposed to that speak very loudly into their phone in theaters or other inappropriate public places.
I respect those who like Siri, just not those who are so rude with it.
Oh sure, never perfect, but I'm not looking for perfect, just excellent.
Then came Siri, which I'm still convinced was a gimmick that Apple introduced to add to the hype. It's the only aspect of iOS I find rather repulsive.
It only gets worse if I stop into a local Starbucks to enjoy a beverage, only to have some newbie showing off with Siri, as though "she's" his / her personal assistant.
Much like those people we've all been exposed to that speak very loudly into their phone in theaters or other inappropriate public places.
I respect those who like Siri, just not those who are so rude with it.
Not to say you did something wrong but SIRI uses has to use location services for location based results? You are supposed to have the location arrow in your statusbar. If your SIRI doesn't have access to your location than it can't give you location based results. Just saying. I did your quick test myself and I have the location arrow turned on thus indication location services are turned on and working correctly. Try turning it on and try your search again.
99%? Maybe in the US, everywhere else its more realistically 40%. Quick example - I'm in North London, United Kingdom. I have an Asda Walmart about 5 miles away. Here's what Siri said just now:
Words fail me. How the hell did it decide that it wanted to look in Texas?!
I was referring to MS's tablet advert that shows their tablet using multiple apps simultaneously (ex. Powerpoint open next to an IM app), while the iPad cannot. Meaning, running two apps simultaneously without having to close one to get to the other.
What you're describing are background tasks, requiring the home button to switch between apps, limiting the ability to work with two app's at once. Double click home button, switch to Mail, double click home button, switch to Pages, double click home button, switch to Messages to communicate with work colleague, double click home button... etc, etc. (or use the four finger gestures to access the task bar) That's tedious and isn't an ideal workflow.
Think of it this way, you're on your 27" iMac with a Safari window open next to your Mail window, working between both. Now bring that ability to the iPad. Working in Pages or Keynote, have Messages running down the side of the iPad next to your other app to work with a colleague on a project.
You don't need the home button. Just swipe side to side like virtual desktops.
I can tweet and Facebook by pulling down the notification center. Would be nice to SMS/message, but you need an interface to choose with whom, etc. it needs to be done right. Having half of both apps that aren't sharing/collaborating is nonsense.
I'm sure your tact is appreciated, but you are saying that he/she is doing something wrong...and you're right about it.
It's shocking the number of people who will complain about technology when it doesn't "work" - only to find out it's user error. Of course, technology should just work, but if there wasn't an option to turn off location services it would be a 'breach of privacy'
It's amazing how all these examples are exactly how Siri and maps *doesn't* work. Maps finds location around you or where your map location. Siri does the same. It's how it is designed. The examples could be bugs, but 99% they are pebcak or pure BS.
What is the new pebcak for phones? Pebue (problem exists between users eyes)?
Why wouldn't iOS tell the user to turn on location serves when asking the location based question?
Why default to a random place in another country if it's not smart enough to give the option?
Why wouldn't Siri also use local cell towers to help with the search?
Seems like pretty simplistic options for the average user.
Siri. Where is my nearest Walmart?
I can assist you better if you turn on location services. Would you like me to do so?
Google does it and Siri I has been out longer.
It should just work.
Siri doesn't control location services or do any of these other things for privacy. If it did, people would complain.
On the other hand, I do see your point that it could at least tell you that it can't provide a result because it doesn't have access to your location...Still, all technology has pros/cons - at least learn how it works before you freak out about how it sucks.
The average user doesn't know. That is the point.
It should just work.
I turned off all location services on my Nexus 7 & asked Google Now where the closest Starbucks was. It used cell towers to give me accurate results along with the option of a map option for each location.
This is the simplicity the average dumb user needs.
I would agree with you that is the simplicity the average user needs. However, there are many other examples of Google's Android OS being more complex than iOS...so again, pros/cons for the average user. Specifically talking about Now vs. Siri - is it easier that when you ask Now to read your mail it searches Google for "read mail" rather than opening your inbox?
The more important point, however, is privacy. If it's true that Google tracked your location using cell towers without your explicit permissions - that's a huge breach of privacy and I'm very surprised people haven't spoken out against it.
Fail. Apple does it and has for years. Cell tower triangulation.
They were just were too ignorant to program it into the app that obviously needs it.
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Alright. Now you're just being rude. Did your mommy not pay enough attention to you growing up or something?
Anyway, if you're going to make the claim that Apple tracks the iPhone's location when location services are turned off, you'll need to provide a source. My quick research turns up nothing of the sort. At the very least, Apple denies it: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/04/27Apple-Q-A-on-Location-Data.html
If you turned off location services out of a privacy concern, and it just fell back on cell towers triangulation by default, it just rendered you privacy setting useless.
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I'm being rude because you refuse to accept a fact? A bit insecure aren't you.
Read. Learn. Think Different. Apple is tracking you wrong.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/04/how-apple-tracks-your-location-without-your-consent-and-why-it-matters/
From the link you supplied.
"3. Why is my iPhone logging my location?
The iPhone is not logging your location. Rather, its maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested. Calculating a phones location using just GPS satellite data can take up to several minutes. iPhone can reduce this time to just a few seconds by using Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data to quickly find GPS satellites, and even triangulate its location using just Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data when GPS is not available (such as indoors or in basements). These calculations are performed live on the iPhone using a crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data that is generated by tens of millions of iPhones sending the geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple.
You are being tracked but Siri is just too ignorant to use the data to give you what you're looking for.
I appreciate the link, and I've read through the article. However, you provided me with information that's well over 2 years old. Not really relevant today.
Did you know that if you turn off location services on your iPhone the cell tower triangulation data file is deleted? Guess not.
Regardless, as someone else said...if you modify your privacy settings to turn off location services but Siri (or Google Now) ignores that request not to transmit location information and does it anyway - then it's a privacy failure in the application. Siri doesn't do it. From what you've told me, Google Now does. That may or may not be OK for different people.
It all leads back to my original point of pros/cons to different systems for usability. Could/should Siri notify the user that location services aren't turned on rather than returning a silly result...sure. Should Google Now actually open my inbox when I ask it to read mail rather than searching the web for 'Read mail'...sure. Should Google Now ignore my privacy to give me more accurate location information... absolutely not.
Finally, you're not being rude for having discourse with me. It's just you're coming off as a childish prick. Who knows...I'm probably trying to converse with a 12 year old..
Keep reading...
I am indeed being 'tracked' as you put it...but that's because I allow location services...that's not what we are talking about. We are talking about if indeed, at the present time, when location services are turned off, the user's location is being tracked/logged. The answer is no to my best knowledge. If you can provide some other kind of current resource that says different, please do and I will gladly look into it.
So is the link you supplied from Apples own website.
For all you know you could be conversing with Google Now & both Apple & me know your location. Computer browsers use similar methods to track your location.
Yes. The link I supplied was from Apple.
I don't know what the rest has to do with your argument. I already told you that I enable location services and therefore am alright with quid pro quo tacking. But it's not really about me, it's about how user friendly an app is and if an app should ignore privacy settings to be more user friendly.
Your responses are becoming less and less relevant and less and less interesting, so I'm out.
Good day.
It does. Turn off location services and a search for anything in Siri will bring a message that it doesn't know where you are and that you should turn on location services. With a helpful button to take you there.
How the example above got those results is suspect but could be a bug ( or fake). Need to post the example.
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Can assure you it's not fake, and just checked my location services, they are on. Will have to have a play around with it, clearly it must know my location though otherwise it wouldn't be working at all.
Siri does not work properly, period.
When you ask it for the "next service area" while driving it just tells you to "retain it" (is this funny or rude?) and then puts up a rather long list in rather small letters for reading while driving. Where is the usability in that?
Ever tried to make Siri play an English song title (like "Angle") or English named location (like "Subway") while using a different main language? No fun!
When you ask it for the "next service area" while driving it just tells you to "retain it" (is this funny or rude?) and then puts up a rather long list in rather small letters for reading while driving. Where is the usability in that?
Ever tried to make Siri play an English song title (like "Angle") or English named location (like "Subway") while using a different main language? No fun!
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Perhaps it's the accents
Perhaps Siri finds it difficult to understand accents. This would be particularly difficult in the UK given the variety of different accents. From Scottish to West country to Yorkshire, etc
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Behind them in terms of time perhaps, but better than them in terms of quality
Perhaps Siri finds it difficult to understand accents. This would be particularly difficult in the UK given the variety of different accents. From Scottish to West country to Yorkshire, etc
----------
Behind them in terms of time perhaps, but better than them in terms of quality
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Apple native products?!
Apple Native products have a long history of partnership and buyouts.. Nuance (producers of Dragon) bought MacSpeech (the only Speech Dictation software for the Mac at the time) about 3 years ago, possibly with this Apple deal in view.
http://www.nuance.com/macspeech/
Apple, by using non-native companies achieve two things;
1. Tap into serious, and specialist skills (why reinvent the wheel)
2. Limit the damage if it all goes 'tits-up' (can cut it loose if it gets messy)
Look at the shambles that the native Apple Maps, at launch. The main problem there, as far as I can see. Is that Apple Maps lost integration with other services which Google has honed over the development of their system... By this I mean, in Google maps, if I looked for a 'Fat-Face' store, it would tell be where there they all were, nearest first - phone numbers'n'all... In Apple Maps (at Launch) when I typed in 'Fat Face store' I got nothing back... even if I typed in 'MacDonalds' ... nothing..
Apple have sorted this sort of issue out now, as far as I can tell..
MobileMe, used a native iDisk system (cloud file storage). iDisk was ok, and I mean only just ok... It's synchonization was dodgy, so dodgy, that I had to turn in down, put in into manual sync only, because it was unreliable.. I made the move to DropBox before Apple turned off iDisk, and o'boy - what a difference. It is completely reliable on auto sync, I have never had to think about tuning it down... here a non-native system is much better than native one...
DropBox, was so much better than iDisk, that Steve Jobs tried to buy it,
http://www.idownloadblog.com/2011/10/18/apple-steve-jobs-wanted-dropbox/
So it is no wonder, when Apple wanted to integrate Voice Dictation software into iOS, that they went to the specialists and market leaders... Good for Apple!
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'Eye'
Apple Native products have a long history of partnership and buyouts.. Nuance (producers of Dragon) bought MacSpeech (the only Speech Dictation software for the Mac at the time) about 3 years ago, possibly with this Apple deal in view.
http://www.nuance.com/macspeech/
Apple, by using non-native companies achieve two things;
1. Tap into serious, and specialist skills (why reinvent the wheel)
2. Limit the damage if it all goes 'tits-up' (can cut it loose if it gets messy)
Look at the shambles that the native Apple Maps, at launch. The main problem there, as far as I can see. Is that Apple Maps lost integration with other services which Google has honed over the development of their system... By this I mean, in Google maps, if I looked for a 'Fat-Face' store, it would tell be where there they all were, nearest first - phone numbers'n'all... In Apple Maps (at Launch) when I typed in 'Fat Face store' I got nothing back... even if I typed in 'MacDonalds' ... nothing..
Apple have sorted this sort of issue out now, as far as I can tell..
MobileMe, used a native iDisk system (cloud file storage). iDisk was ok, and I mean only just ok... It's synchonization was dodgy, so dodgy, that I had to turn in down, put in into manual sync only, because it was unreliable.. I made the move to DropBox before Apple turned off iDisk, and o'boy - what a difference. It is completely reliable on auto sync, I have never had to think about tuning it down... here a non-native system is much better than native one...
DropBox, was so much better than iDisk, that Steve Jobs tried to buy it,
http://www.idownloadblog.com/2011/10/18/apple-steve-jobs-wanted-dropbox/
So it is no wonder, when Apple wanted to integrate Voice Dictation software into iOS, that they went to the specialists and market leaders... Good for Apple!
----------
Perhaps Siri finds it difficult to understand accents. This would be particularly difficult in the UK given the variety of different accents. From Scottish to West country to Yorkshire, etc
----------
Behind them in terms of time perhaps, but better than them in terms of quality
'Eye'