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Well, lets see how well it works selling the crippled first version, then trying to get the hotels to update to the newer version 18 months later. Don't think hotels are as ignorant as the typical Apple customer/fanboys.
 
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Its not about lazy.

we all spend a lot of time watching a lot of bright screens. Just an example, but fiddling and turning the alarm on prior to getting in the bed adds to screen time. You try to do that before bedtime, then the toddler sees the iPhone and wants to play with it , or wants music or you get a message or you get distracted and end up spending more unwanted time on the screen.

On an average we spend more than 10-12 hours watching various size bright screens. If AI ( Siri or Alexa) can help us from getting away from screens, it will be a huge improvement to humanity as people can concentrate on the other things they were meant to conecentrate on.


Hahaha. Seriously, I mean no ill, but that is very possibly the most ridiculous thing I've ever read. Certainly today :D

Yeah, future civilisations will uncover lost cities and tell the story of how Skynet freed humanity from the scourge of LCD screens. "LOL" ;)
 
The big show-stopper is not just Siri's lack of interpretative skills, but Apple's over-restrictive security policy.
Within hotels, you'd want to get your doors open and lights switched - regardless of HomeKit security, pairing hassles, time-restricted access, logins and all the associated overhead.
Something that just works.
If Apple denies that and restricts "Hey Siri" to just its newest models, they're out of the game. Bye. Just like CarPlay.
 
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I'm an apple fanboy, but I have to say Alexa is much more interesting, but I also like to add that I do not own one because I don't like the idea of someone being able to tap in and listen. When Alexa becomes home kit compliant is the day I will own one.
Kind of the other way around. Many HomeKit gadgets are capable of being activated via Alexa.

BTW, if Siri is going to become a home assistant, it needs to get rid of the stupid comments it makes even when it gets it right. Example: when setting a timer, it says "...and the suspense is killing me!" I'll throw it out the window if I have to hear crap like hat after each command.
 
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I am sorry Apple, Amazon's voice assistant is really that much better and integrates with nearly every smart product on the market.


Siri next gen is coming out this year, but in the meantime you are confusing a stand alone device that has multiple microphones with a system that works on devices on your desk top and, more importantly, with the devices you have with you. A system that speaks but one language with one that understands over twenty languages and even more dialects. And most importantly, a system that leaks like a sieve and stores information for a company that needs your information to survive by selling you things, and is rushing out money losing Echo products that allow even more insecure devices to interface with it, with a company that is committed to protecting your privacy and security and has privacy in its DNA.
 
I dont want the CIA/NSA listening to what im doing in those hotel rooms.. Unplug

Right, because you're so important :rolleyes:. And if you were, they'd use something much more targeted and 24/7 wherever you are.

Not to mention that Alexa has a HARDWARE microphone disable button. Software cannot turn them on.

Right? If you'd told people just 20 years ago that everything they did and said would be monitored, there'd probably have been a revolt. Now, people just say "it needs to work better!".

On the contrary, sci fi lovers... especially Trekkers... have long accepted the idea of a ship-wide always-listening entity named "computer" :)

And many of us baby boomers also thought a half century ago, that one day we'd all have always-listening computerized personal assistants.

Siri next gen is coming out this year, but in the meantime you are confusing a stand alone device that has multiple microphones with a system that works on devices on your desk top and, more importantly, with the devices you have with you.

Not if you don't have i-devices. And man, those multiple microphones really make a difference.

A system that speaks but one language with one that understands over twenty languages and even more dialects.

But often doesn't understand what people are actually asking in those languages.

And most importantly, a system that leaks like a sieve and stores information for a company that needs your information to survive by selling you things, and is rushing out money losing Echo products that allow even more insecure devices to interface with it, with a company that is committed to protecting your privacy and security and has privacy in its DNA.

What money losing products? What leaks?

All/most of the IoT hacks people have heard about were devices directly accessible on the internet, not within a protected realm such as a router based home or hotel network, where outside requests are rejected.
 
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I'm an apple fanboy, but I have to say Alexa is much more interesting, but I also like to add that I do not own one because I don't like the idea of someone being able to tap in and listen. When Alexa becomes home kit compliant is the day I will own one.

You got that backwards... when homekit becomes Alexa compliant, homekit will become slightly more than utterly useless. There's only a teeny-tiny selection of homekit enabled devices, versus literally everything - including homekit items - available to Alexa, either directly or in communication to a required hub device.

And you can always mute the thing... at any point... or make it only tap-to-listen.
 
SIRI has a few big advantages: 1. multi-language support 2. A screen to display information. 3. Video games 4. movies/TV. What will most people do? Turn on lights, play music, set alarms, ask for information about the town. Both can do that equally as well. If the kids want to play video games or watch a cartoon then SIRI wins.

How does Siri play video games and movies? Siri has nothing to do with any of that.
 
Do not want.

I am firmly in the camp that think this whole thing is a terrible idea.

Make it opt-in for people who want it maybe, but I surely wouldn't want this stuff in a hotel room under someone else's control when I don't want it in my own home.

And to be clear, my distaste for this is not out of fear of anything personal particularly, it's just out of the principle that we should all be more concerned about the battle for our own right to privacy than the battle between tech giants for who gets hotel contracts.
 
I know right? I don't even bother asking Siri to turn off my lights anymore because half the time it thinks I'm asking it to turn off the iPhone and tells me how.

"Hey Siri" is turned off. Voice assistants are garbage. We're still far away from the starship USS Enterprise.
Did you use Alexa? It's like 99% accurate even when a person have an accent. Light years ahead of SIRI. I only use SIRI to set up an alarm clock. Everything else is Alexa.
 
TBH, Alexa wins purely down to the better microphones which were designed to pick up sound from a large area. Siri barely understands me when the iPhone is on my bedside table. If Apple developed a stand-alone device, then it becomes more interesting.

Tim Cook, Apple would have to start from scratch to develope a device like Echo or Google Home. Hey Tim, you own Beats, Oh!o_O
 
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How does Siri play video games and movies? Siri has nothing to do with any of that.
I
How does Siri play video games and movies? Siri has nothing to do with any of that.
They are installing iPhones/iPads which do. Alexa currently has no access to a screen.
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You got that backwards... when homekit becomes Alexa compliant, homekit will become slightly more than utterly useless. There's only a teeny-tiny selection of homekit enabled devices, versus literally everything - including homekit items - available to Alexa, either directly or in communication to a required hub device.

And you can always mute the thing... at any point... or make it only tap-to-listen.
how many of these devices are end to end encrypted? I'll take Home Kit with its requirement of hardware end to end encryption over anything else others have to offer.

My Homekit lighting system works perfectly. I walk up to my apartment and my lights come on. I tell SIRI to dim, turn on/off and it does. I walk away from my apartment and all my lights turn off - I think its a fantasitc system.
 
Amazon's virtual assistant has better scalability for something like this IMO. Especially when you consider how large the footprint is now with Amazon prime available in most major cities. Amazon's eco system is massive - you can do everything from same day delivery Prime orders to ordering take-out at local restaurants.
 
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Amazon's virtual assistant has better scalability for something like this IMO. Especially when you consider how large the footprint is now with Amazon prime available in most major cities. Amazon's eco system is massive - you can do everything from same day delivery Prime orders to ordering take-out at local restaurants.
How does that apply to a stay at a hotel?
 
"The Aloft Hotel in Boston is using Amazon Echo devices and a collection of iPhones and iPads to gather information on which voice assistant will ultimately best serve guests in the long run."

Oh, that's so cute! These clueless hotel execs seem to imagine that technology is going to stop evolving, that there's some sort of "long run" here that involves Siri or Alexa being frozen more or less forever.

Jesus, the stupidity! It burns!!!
 
I am sure there is an assumption that you actually own a device that works with the service. In fairness, try talking to Alexa without an Echo. ;)

I was assuming that likewise, each room would have an iDevice for Siri to work with a guest.

So you're thinking that the services would only be accessible at all to guests who bring their own iOS device? That doesn't make much sense to me. Half (or way more in many parts of the world) of the guests would be unable to use it.

"The Aloft Hotel in Boston is using Amazon Echo devices and a collection of iPhones and iPads to gather information on which voice assistant will ultimately best serve guests in the long run."

Oh, that's so cute! These clueless hotel execs seem to imagine that technology is going to stop evolving, that there's some sort of "long run" here that involves Siri or Alexa being frozen more or less forever.

Jesus, the stupidity! It burns!!!

First, "long run" does not equal "forever." Second, I think here it simply means past the testing period.
 
"Behind Winston's back the voice from the telescreen was still babbling away about pig-iron and the overfulfilment of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized." - 1984, George Orwell (published 1949).
 
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The big show-stopper is not just Siri's lack of interpretative skills, but Apple's over-restrictive security policy.
Within hotels, you'd want to get your doors open and lights switched - regardless of HomeKit security, pairing hassles, time-restricted access, logins and all the associated overhead.
Something that just works.
If Apple denies that and restricts "Hey Siri" to just its newest models, they're out of the game. Bye. Just like CarPlay.

My suggestion would be to "Cover Alexa" when not using in a Hotel Environment. Too easy for those who want to "Listen In." :rolleyes:
 
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