Siri Offers Witty Responses to Users Asking About WWDC Announcements

[redheeler]

If Siri were honest with us:

"Siri, what's coming at WWDC?"
"Me on the Mac. Surely you're not expecting something more useful."

 

[robjulo]

More useless parlor tricks.

 

[jon3543]

Now if they could only program her to be useful.

 

[bighype]

To be honest... unless you work on the Siri team at Apple, you have no clue how behind or ahead they are. No one does. Just because there's been slow progress up until now, does not mean there isn't a major upgrade coming.


And yes... WWDC is Santa Clause to many of us.

No clue? I just have to use it for an hour to see its capabilities. I just have to look at the patents Apple has filed on AI. I just have to do a search on Google Scholar to see how many papers people who work at Apple have written (hint: 1/1000th of the papers that are coming from MS/Google/FB.)

While Facebook, Google, Amazon and Microsoft are hiring AI experts, Tim Cook's spending millions on FASHION executives.

Look at the list of people Apple has been hiring in the past year. Most of them are from fashion industry (watch executives etc).

And look at the list of people Google, for example, is hiring: it's who's who of AI, computer science and so on.

Cook's pivoting Apple away from technology and into luxury fashion space.

Now that iPhone craze is dying down and sales are falling, Cook's incompetence will finally come to light.

 

[garirry]

Couldn't resist

"What's coming at WWDC?"
"Looking deep inside the flesh and body of the excellent Mac, seeing the disk spin like a record just like in the good ol' days, reminds you, it won't be spinning any faster soon."

 

[pat500000]

Watch bands!

NOOOOOOOO...don't say that. lol.

 

[AFEPPL]

I use Siri every day. If you don't it's because you're not trying and it isn't integrated into your workflow and talking to a computer is a little unnatural and has to be explored before you'll know what can be expected.

Today I asked Siri about the weather in the city I'm visiting, dictated a half dozen iMessages in two languages, controlled the lights and made several FaceTime audio calls.

The real problem with Siri is that after spending several hours on the Mac at work you get in the keyboard and mouse mindset and catch yourself doing something inefficiently out of habit. This happens to me on the Apple TV all the time.

Doesn't work for me, the only time i can get a result is "set alarm".
The voice to txt fails every time and i then end up editing it...

Why would you kill a talking dog?

its better than having to walk it...

 

[rdlink]

Hope Siri gets a proper update and not some minor tweaks here and there. Cortana is really ahead of Siri and Google Now right now.

I'm Sirious....

Talk to me when Cortana can unlock my front door, turn my lights on and off, set my thermostat, close my garage door and run my ceiling fans.

 

[duffman9000]

Interesting there's so many negative comments... given Apple generally is a little late coming to the party, but tends to really hit it home when they do, I'm expecting this will be a very exciting WWDC. I think SIRI in particular is going to see a huge improvement.

I consider Siri to be a mutant baby that was dropped down the stairs once too many times and should have been lobotomized. Sure, she can speak afterward, but everything has to be preprogrammed. Siri doesn't have any thoughts of its own.
[doublepost=1465496562][/doublepost]

Why would you kill a talking dog?

I would never hurt a cuddly talking dog but boy would I love to go medieval on Siri.

 

[rdlink]

Well a talking dog would be good, if it talked sense... its like that game where you ask a question and you answer a difference question. while its funny for a while..... soon gets old.

Hmmm. And yet, Siri is the most important tool on my phone every day. Guess it's true that different people see the world differently.
[doublepost=1465496810][/doublepost]

Watch bands!

Starting to become the new "Snappier Safari" comment...

 

[pat500000]

Why would you kill a talking dog?

Don't know...ask snoop dogg.

 

[jonnysods]

This is fun! I'm pretty excited for Monday...

 

[FreeState]

This developer page gives a few minor hints about some software additions we can expect.

"Hello self-combusting selfies" is perhaps referring to a SnapChat-like non-permanent picture message that's only temporarily available to the recipient.

"Hello rain in five minutes" seems to refer to improvements in the Weather app along the lines of near-casting or now-casting, which offers improved and more detailed short-term forecasts based on recent and current observations.

Other less interesting ones seem to be about sport deals (Baseball) on AppleTV, some watch stuff and some fitness stuff which could be AppleTV or Apple Watch-related or both (integrated).

But we know most people just want to see the hardware!

I think the biggest hint is HELLO at the beginning of each line...

 

[theatremusician]

I can answer the question. Nothing really new and nothing remotely revolutionary. Tim Cook era really needs to end.

 

[CWallace]

While Facebook, Google, Amazon and Microsoft are hiring AI experts, Tim Cook's spending millions on FASHION executives.

Those FASHION executives are generating billions in revenue at Apple. Something those AI experts are most certainly not doing at Microsoft, Google and Amazon. Heck, recent studies show some 80% of Amazon Echo owners also own iPhones so that bodes well for Apple when they do decide to enter the space. And Microsoft and Google are both pushing their AI tech onto iOS because that is where the money - and users - are.

 

[BruceEBonus]

Going by the general trend of comments then, it really does appear that Siri Is Sometimes The Hardest Word

.... to say without preceding it first, with a choice expletive.

 

[bighype]

Those FASHION executives are generating billions in revenue at Apple. Something those AI experts are most certainly not doing at Microsoft, Google and Amazon. Heck, recent studies show some 80% of Amazon Echo owners also own iPhones so that bodes well for Apple when they do decide to enter the space. And Microsoft and Google are both pushing their AI tech onto iOS because that is where the money - and users - are.

Their contribution is minimal. Apple's revenue has now fallen, for the first time ever, and we've reached "Peak iPhone". What now?

At least the AI techniques will rule the world in less than 5 years time. What will Apple do then?

 

[robjulo]

Based on what? People still keep spouting this out like it is still true. They haven't consistently hit a "home run" in years. What track record would allow you to think that this year is going to be the big year for Siri? Google is miles ahead of Siri right now.

I'll give one real world example just recently. My wife wanted to change flights. I asked Google what flights were available between two cities. A plethora of information came up, flights, airlines, times, costs etc.

I asked Siri the same. You know what I got? A link to Orbitz.

Interesting there's so many negative comments... given Apple generally is a little late coming to the party, but tends to really hit it home when they do, I'm expecting this will be a very exciting WWDC. I think SIRI in particular is going to see a huge improvement.

 

[Swazaloo]

Couldn't resist

So sad yet so true. Apple is so quick to banish legacy tech, but them vintage hard drives keep going and going.

 

[CWallace]

Their contribution is minimal.

Minimal compared to what the iPhone brings in, but still the nearside of $10 billion based on estimates, which is around half of what Google makes from advertising and closing in on half of what Amazon reported in revenues last year.

Anyway, rumors have it will get a Siri API and an Echo-like device announced on Monday so maybe Apple is taking all of our criticism to heart.

 

[melliflu]

Watch Siri destroy the night of Solange, a French girl using Siri for the first time (english sub available)

 

[bighype]

Minimal compared to what the iPhone brings in, but still the nearside of $10 billion based on estimates, which is around half of what Google makes from advertising and closing in on half of what Amazon reported in revenues last year.

Anyway, rumors have it will get a Siri API and an Echo-like device announced on Monday so maybe Apple is taking all of our criticism to heart.

Have you read the rest of my comment above? AI is not something that you can hack up in a year. It requires continuous improvement over many years.

Look at the experts that work at Google and Facebook for example. You won't find experts of similar caliber at Apple.

That's why all these "just you wait" comments are so silly and ignorant of the reality. Fact is that you can't improve Siri without massive investments and expert hires.

READ:
https://marco.org/2016/05/21/avoiding-blackberrys-fate
http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/25/11765624/walt-mossberg-apple-wwdc-2016-siri-ai-bots

Listen:
http://atp.fm/171
http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/26/11785718/ctrl-walt-delete-podcast-031-apple-

 

[mr.bee]

What should I wear at wwdc?

 

[palmerc]

Doesn't work for me, the only time i can get a result is "set alarm".
The voice to txt fails every time and i then end up editing it...


its better than having to walk it...

Crazy. I don't get 100% accuracy of course, but I'm getting good enough that it doesn't really matter. Even if I'm forced into editing one word it is faster than typing the equivalent text. The only thing that is a bit fussy is Hey Siri, which works about 85-95% of the time, which seems to be a function of distance. This could of course be fixed with a beamforming microphone array, but thats hard to do in the form factor of a phone.

That isn't to say there aren't annoying things that crop up, for example I nicknamed my wife The Shark (as a joke of course) in my contacts and say to Siri - Hey Siri FaceTime Audio The Shark or Send a message to The Shark. She gets it about 99 times out of 100, but every so often she starts thinking The Shark is a restaurant. Stuff like that is a little annoying because I get so used to never removing the phone from my pocket.

 

[Glassed Silver]

Spewing out silly jokes is all that Siri's good for.

Google's AI is running circles (and beating Go champions) around Siri.

While Google was buying DeepMind AI, Tim Cook and Eddy Cue were buying BEATS urban fashion brand and made billionaires out of bunch of rappers.

Apple's run by morons.

While I don't think Beats was a truly terrible acquisition I do agree that Apple should dive more into AI if they really want a foothold in personal assistants.

Glassed Silver:mac