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Why doesn't Apple simply buy more servers for Siri?

kristoffer4

kristoffer4

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 17, 2006
1,031
156
Denmark
Gizmodo recently did a test of Siri vs Google Voice Search showed that Google is much more responsive so I wonder why doesn't Apple use some of it's huge cash pile to buy a lot more servers? :confused:
http://vimeo.com/52497584
 
Last edited:
I think it would be useful if the voice recognition part of Siri was network-independent. If voice recognition were performed entirely locally, then it might be quicker and also it would be a feature that would allow dictation without a network.
 
I hated Siri's lag and quiet fails for a long time. But since iOS 6, it has been a night-and-day improvement. I'm really starting to like it, and the biggest critic, my wife, is starting to use it also.

I no longer get the long waiting times and quiet fails. I get much faster response. I get much better results. IME, success went from somewhere in the 50% to about 90+%.

Still frustrating that it doesn't understand "Wreck it Ralph" even in the context of a movie search. Instead it wants to search for "Rekkit Ralph".

Current complaint: I want Siri to repeat driving instructions on demand.
 
VulchR said:
I think it would be useful if the voice recognition part of Siri was network-independent. If voice recognition were performed entirely locally, then it might be quicker and also it would be a feature that would allow dictation without a network.
Click to expand...

I don't think our phones have that great of processing to do fully local speech dictation. Google did it with Android 4.1, but it's vastly more inaccurate. I agree, though, it would be ideal.
 
Google is well positioned to tap into their huge cache of content. Over the years they've built up a lot of content that Google Now links to directly.

Siri is designed to work with more content providers but at the cost of speed. Eventually Siri has the potential to be more flexible as more domains are plugged in the backend but right now it's not as optimized to be as fast as Google's offerings.
 
Things like Siri are evolutionary products so they evolve as time passes. If they wanted to they could put a small dent in the cash reserves and make today's Siri outstanding but that's not wise business planning for the future. Siri isn't core business. It's an added functionality that has the potential to evolve into something enormous but right now it's not. As it extends into other sources of revenue, OS X, the funds will be proportionately applied in that direction.

I think Siri is a great feature, but some people on here don't even use it or use it sparingly. It's just not worth the cost of all out blitz to make it extraordinary right now.
 
At the very least I wish Siri would automatically fall back to the old Voice Control when there is no data connection. If you turn off Siri you can see that Voice Control is still built in to iOS. Voice Control works without a data connection.
 
kristoffer4 said:
Gizmodo recently did a test of Siri vs Google Voice Search showed that Google is much more responsive so I wonder why doesn't Apple use some of it's huge cash pile to buy a lot more servers? :confused:
http://vimeo.com/52497584
Click to expand...

It might be a matter of location and the amount of data traffic.

I live in a rural area. Siri works just about instantly. Took her but a few seconds to answer of my query "local pizzerias." She named all four in town.

On the other hand, when I asked Google for "local pizzerias," it came up with "local pizzerias at the Santa Ana Zoo" (I'm in Northern Michigan), "shop local Thanksgiving," and a bunch of other nonsense that had no relation to my question. Google may be fast, but it can't compare to Siri for accuracy in my area.
 
zbarvian said:
I don't think our phones have that great of processing to do fully local speech dictation. Google did it with Android 4.1, but it's vastly more inaccurate. I agree, though, it would be ideal.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I suspect it would a dedicated chip. Then again, that's precisely what Apple did in the first Mac's that gave them an edge over competitors - they put QuickDraw into ROM. Hmmm.... a chip that processes speech could have other signal processing uses....
 
The main reason Siri doesn't have full voice processing on the device itself is that the database would be many gigabytes in size. With iOS builds now in the 700MB region, and some devices only having 8GB of storage, you can see why they made the decision.
 
I'm sure this has been discussed before. It was found that googles solution is that as your asking the question it's already being transmitted to them where as Siri listens compresses sends then responds. Googles solution also used more data.
 
My experience in Minneapolis is Siri's responsiveness has gone from decent to excellent. I've noticed a significant improvement in the past three weeks. Almost no lag and very fast dictation.
 
What do you think the massive server farms in North Carolina and Oregon are going to be for? ;)
 
kristoffer4 said:
Gizmodo recently did a test of Siri vs Google Voice Search showed that Google is much more responsive so I wonder why doesn't Apple use some of it's huge cash pile to buy a lot more servers? :confused:
http://vimeo.com/52497584
Click to expand...

Has nothing to do with (or lack of) server power. There are so many more factors that play into it - data connection for one, compression of audio on the device, interpretation of the voice recognition mechanism, background processing, available RAM... etc.

Siri needs to be optimised, not simply more servers.
 
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