Steve Jobs Contacted Siri Just Three Weeks After App's Initial Launch, Disliked the Name

[Tones2]

http://eugen.leitl.org/tt/msg10184.html

With human knowledge approximately doubling every 5 years or so, I am definitely not prepared to make predictions about what will or will not occur in my lifetime, but that may be because I'm operating under the common delusion that I have all the time in the world

...which can only mean, you're not planning on living much longer...

is everything ok?

Even if Siri is TWICE as good in 5 years, it'll still be a toy. But I doubt it's twice as good - The premise is faulty. Doing something yourself is almost always faster than COMMUNICATION to someone / something else and having that communication 100% effective in both interpreting WHAT you want and HOW you want it done and then doing it and verifying that it's correct. Too many words - it's always faster just to ACT. Speaking is inefficient for mechanical things.

Tony

 

[Marcus PM]

I suppose "Hal" would have been the most fun & obvious name choice except for the negative connotations that go along with that one.

 

[Can't Stop]

I'm with Steve Jobs on this one...I hate the name Siri also.

Yeah, HAL 9000 was already taken so ...

 

[maxmatic]

Even if Siri is TWICE as good in 5 years, it'll still be a toy. But I doubt it's twice as good - The premise is faulty. Doing something yourself is almost always faster than COMMUNICATION to someone / something else and having that communication 100% effective in both interpreting WHAT you want and HOW you want it done and then doing it and verifying that it's correct. Too many words - it's always faster just to ACT. Speaking is inefficient for mechanical things.

Tony

To some degree, I agree with you... But it's still faster for me to tell Siri to make a reminder, or set an alarm, than it is for me to do it myself.

 

[koobcamuk]

When Siri gets polished in a year, or two, or even more, Apple will be the first one one to have the technology. Talking to a device? C'mon... There is a future here.

Actually, Apple are a little behind here in Japan. Docomo's service knocks its socks off, due to the location-based and multiple other services.

 

[Can't Stop]

Even if Siri is TWICE as good in 5 years, it'll still be a toy. But I doubt it's twice as good - The premise is faulty. Doing something yourself is almost always faster than COMMUNICATION to someone / something else and having that communication 100% effective in both interpreting WHAT you want and HOW you want it done and then doing it and verifying that it's correct. Too many words - it's always faster just to ACT. Speaking is inefficient for mechanical things.

Tony

Tell me how can you read a message you just received FASTER while driving? It’s not a means to all ends. It never was. No one ever advertised it as such.

 

[overcast]

You're in the minority then.

Actually kind of surprised the Steve couldn't come up with an alternative.

You're in the minority, at least as far as colleagues and friends are concerned. Siri, while neat, turned out to be nothing more than a novelty for the first few weeks of use. No one wants to sit there and speak out commands to their phone, especially in public.

 

[kalebhoot]

will it ever leave beta stage or add new features? i mean seriously, it took the jailbreak community not even a day to come up with great new commands

That's because they ain't got to support millions of people if their **** doesn't work. Also, Apple has other stuff to worry about as well like you know macs, OS x, iOS, iWork, iLife, etc. unlike those hackers.

 

[RalfTheDog]

Come on people, Siriusly?

****

The next step is surely to perfect a more human-sounding text-to-speech engine.

That would be bad. People like machines to sound and look like machines. If they are too human like, many people freak.

are you sure about that? ive yet to see anyone use it in public. the only time i use it is when i click the button for too long or need a alarm set, thats about it

ironically the stand alone siri app was capable of so much more than the apple version

Server load. The more people using it, the more load. The more load, the less it can do.

Even if Siri is TWICE as good in 5 years, it'll still be a toy. But I doubt it's twice as good - The premise is faulty. Doing something yourself is almost always faster than COMMUNICATION to someone / something else and having that communication 100% effective in both interpreting WHAT you want and HOW you want it done and then doing it and verifying that it's correct. Too many words - it's always faster just to ACT. Speaking is inefficient for mechanical things.

Tony

It depends on how smart it becomes. The more it learns about you, the better it can filter it's options. In a short time, it may be better at filtering out GoogleSpam and wrong results than a human can.

 

[kalebhoot]

You're in the minority, at least as far as colleagues and friends are concerned. Siri, while neat, turned out to be nothing more than a novelty for the first few weeks of use.

No you're the minority. There was a stat floating around in the interwebs that said 87% of the iphone 4S users use Siri. And their servers can't seem to scale to that many requests. So I guess somebody's been using Siri.

 

[Can't Stop]

You're in the minority, at least as far as colleagues and friends are concerned. Siri, while neat, turned out to be nothing more than a novelty for the first few weeks of use.

I use it everyday at least 5 or 6 times. Not counting when she reads messages to me when i’m driving.

It’s a feature, if you are not using it doesn’t mean feature is crappy, it means you have no use for it.

 

[overcast]

I can't say I'm overly impressed with the name either, but it hardly matters.

Anything would have made more sense, iAssist? At least it would have remained consistent. Siri sounds like exactly what it is. A shoehorned application that no one really uses.

 

[RalfTheDog]

Anything would have made more sense, iAssist? At least it would have remained consistent. Siri sounds like exactly what it is. A shoehorned application that no one really uses.

... Or a placeholder for something much better in the future.

 

[notjustjay]

Even if Siri is TWICE as good in 5 years, it'll still be a toy. But I doubt it's twice as good - The premise is faulty. Doing something yourself is almost always faster than COMMUNICATION to someone / something else and having that communication 100% effective in both interpreting WHAT you want and HOW you want it done and then doing it and verifying that it's correct. Too many words - it's always faster just to ACT. Speaking is inefficient for mechanical things.

We've already got some good examples of how this isn't always the case. You're driving and you want to text someone. Saying "Siri, tell Joe I'm running 10 minutes late" is certainly faster and more efficient than pulling over to the side of the road so you can type out that same message.

It's not just driving; I don't know about you but I'm not very good at typing and walking (or running or biking) at the same time. So it would be more efficient then as well.

A limited set of use cases, perhaps, but still very useful.

 

[phillipduran]

. . . and change the name to, "The Siri".

 

[Can't Stop]

Anything would have made more sense, iAssist? At least it would have remained consistent. Siri sounds like exactly what it is. A shoehorned application that no one really uses.

Yeah, a spelling nightmare. iAssist? Really? and you have no shame to criticize

 

[overcast]

No you're the minority. There was a stat floating around in the interwebs that said 87% of the iphone 4S users use Siri. And their servers can't seem to scale to that many requests. So I guess somebody's been using Siri.

Oh give me a break, playing around with it once a month does not count as using it. Here's another random statistic http://www.electronista.com/articles/12/03/26/iphone.4s.sees.active.use.but.mixed.uptake/

33% use it daily and only 55% of them were happy with it.

----------

... Or a placeholder for something much better in the future.

That's not Apple style though.

 

[notjustjay]

That would be bad. People like machines to sound and look like machines. If they are too human like, many people freak.

I don't know. We're fascinated by the concept of an AI assistant -- look at the computers on Star Trek, Jarvis in Iron Man, and so many other sci-fi movies. Obviously you don't want the AI to get too smart and go all Skynet on you, but sounding human in and of itself isn't such a bad thing.

 

[Jamesbot]

they should have called it Lisa

 

[Jaredly]

Wirelessly posted

Uhm I really have an issue with your thinking here. You are basically saying that all electronics are stupid. Every electronic device on the planet works this way. We input something via text all Siri is doing is letting you input something via voice??

My understanding of your reasoning the only way of doing something is a pen and paper. Remember when computing was young? It took a longtime to save something or for a webpage to load. Eventually the computing gets faster and you will see that input something manually will be like hand writing a letter and mailing it.

 

[Tones2]

No you're the minority. There was a stat floating around in the interwebs that said 87% of the iphone 4S users use Siri. And their servers can't seem to scale to that many requests. So I guess somebody's been using Siri.

That is such a non-sense unmeaningful statistic ad gives no indication whatsoever that Siri is of any use to anyone or the nature and quantity of times used. For instance, I certain use Siri about once a month or more simply to show people how inaccurate it is and just to have fun with some of the ridiculous answers and results it presents. Plus it's still a relatively new "toy" - ask again in about 6 months and the amount of users will drop dramatically.

Tony

 

[basesloaded190]

Oh give me a break, playing around with it once a month does not count as using it.

Than what does?

 

[Jaredly]

Wirelessly posted

http://eugen.leitl.org/tt/msg10184.html

With human knowledge approximately doubling every 5 years or so, I am definitely not prepared to make predictions about what will or will not occur in my lifetime, but that may be because I'm operating under the common delusion that I have all the time in the world

...which can only mean, you're not planning on living much longer...

is everything ok?

Even if Siri is TWICE as good in 5 years, it'll still be a toy. But I doubt it's twice as good - The premise is faulty. Doing something yourself is almost always faster than COMMUNICATION to someone / something else and having that communication 100% effective in both interpreting WHAT you want and HOW you want it done and then doing it and verifying that it's correct. Too many words - it's always faster just to ACT. Speaking is inefficient for mechanical things.

Tony

Uhm I really have an issue with your thinking here. You are basically saying that all electronics are stupid. Every electronic device on the planet works this way. We input something via text all Siri is doing is letting you input something via voice??

My understanding of your reasoning the only way of doing something is a pen and paper. Remember when computing was young? It took a longtime to save something or for a webpage to load. Eventually the computing gets faster and you will see that input something manually will be like hand writing a letter and mailing it.

 

[Tones2]

Than what does?

Using it consistently and functionally daily over an extended period of time.

Tony

----------

Wirelessly posted



Uhm I really have an issue with your thinking here. You are basically saying that all electronics are stupid. Every electronic device on the planet works this way. We input something via text all Siri is doing is letting you input something via voice??

My understanding of your reasoning the only way of doing something is a pen and paper. Remember when computing was young? It took a longtime to save something or for a webpage to load. Eventually the computing gets faster and you will see that input something manually will be like hand writing a letter and mailing it.

Nope - I'm saying that inputing something via VOICE that has to be INTERPRETED and acted upon by something independent of your own mind is not efficient. I'm not talking about voice dictation because that's not was Siri is supposed to be. It has nothing to do with other electronics. Your pen and paper analogy is totally irrelevant.

Tony

 

[Born2run45]

That is such a non-sense unmeaningful statistic ad gives no indication whatsoever that Siri is of any use to anyone or the nature and quantity of times used. For instance, I certain use Siri about once a month or more simply to show people how inaccurate it is and just to have fun with some of the ridiculous answers and results it presents. Plus it's still a relatively new "toy" - ask again in about 6 months and the amount of users will drop dramatically.

Tony

Wow, you have some real hate for Siri.