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>Based on Apple's history, we should really be expecting them to crush the Echo and Chromecast sometime in the next few years. My impression is that Apple is f

>Based on Apple's history, we should really be expecting them to crush the Echo and Chromecast sometime in the next few years. My impression is that Apple is far behind in the machine learning/AI/personal assistant space, and does not have the engineering resources to catch up. I'd like to be wrong about that, because I like Apple products and I believe that competition is good, but I'm pessimistic.

toyg 10y ago
How can a company with cash reserves as large as several nations "not have engineering resources"? They don't want to get engineering resources on par with competitors, for whatever reason.
- hga 10y ago
  Not necessarily. A company can't just magic the best or even good/adequate "engineering resources", AKA human beings, out of thin air, as anyone who's tried to start a startup even with serious cash in hand can attest. Apple's corporate culture has a variety of things that I would find hard to imagine not suppressing their ability to hire and retain the best; I'm sure others have a better idea than I, but the #1 thing staring us in the face is that software is not respected.
  - FireBeyond 10y ago
    I hear this regularly, and I don't buy it. It's not that black and white. No-one is suggesting or implying that Apple throws some money at HR and Monday morning comes around and they're sitting down a new multi-hundred person engineering team like magic. But at this point, OS X/macOS improvement has been in obvious decline (since 10.6? 10.8?) for _several years_. No, Apple can't just magic an engineering team out of thin air. Apple can, however, create engineering teams given several years of it being a pressing priority. They were able to for iOS, for watchOS, etc. But therein lies the rub - with every month that goes by, it's clear that to call it a "pressing priority" to Apple would be to give it an importance that they clearly don't feel it has.
    - twblalock 10y ago
      > But therein lies the rub - with every month that goes by, it's clear that to call it a "pressing priority" to Apple would be to give it an importance that they clearly don't feel it has. The question is, what is Apple's priority right now? The latest iPhone and Apple Watch models are incremental upgrades, and in the case of the iPhone, everyone expected a redesign (and Apple had two years to make that happen, but they either chose not to, or failed). macOS or whatever they call it now hasn't changed much in several years, as you pointed out. The Mac Pro is stagnant. The Mac Mini is stagnant. The new Macbook Pro model has the touch bar, after several years of sameness. The only recent Apple products that are a notable upgrade from their previous versions are the Apple TV with Siri, and potentially the touch bar Macbook Pro. That's all I can think of since the release of the iPhone 6 in 2014. I guess you could throw in the giant iPad Pro too, but I've never actually seen one outside of an Apple Store, so I don't know if they sell that well. I hope Apple has some exciting products lined up for 2017, because the past few years have been incremental at best.
      - grzm 10y ago
        The latest iPhone and Apple Watch models are incremental upgrades, and in the case of the iPhone, everyone expected a redesign Pretty much the only thing that didn't change on the iPhone in the latest rev was the form factor. Apple is also very well known for continual incremental upgrades. Yes, I'm going to quote Gruber: In every regard, from performance to battery life to camera image quality to haptic feedback to water resistance to wide color gamut displays to sound quality from the speakers, the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are impressive year-over-year improvements over the 6S/6S Plus, and stunning improvements over the two- and three-year old iPhone 6 and 5S — which are the models most people considering the new iPhones will be upgrading from. https://daringfireball.net/2016/09/the_iphones_7 https://daringfireball.net/2016/09/the_iphones_7 Is the lack of a form factor change in the iPhone 7 make you think the iPhone is not (still) a priority for Apple?
        twblalock 10y ago
        Every two years, there was a new iPhone form factor. Everyone expects that to continue. Apple is aware that this expectation exists, because Apple created that expectation by releasing a new iPhone form factor every two years. However, Apple did not meet that expectation this year, and did not offer any explanation. If that was deliberate, it was probably a stupid business move and definitely a failure to manage expectations. If it was not deliberate, it indicates that Apple can no longer finish a complete iPhone redesign in two years, which it was able to do in the past. Either way, it's not good. Frankly, John Gruber is a poster boy for rationalization of Apple's mistakes. He's like a dog that gets kicked and keeps coming back to its owner. If the iPhones were exploding instead of Galaxy Notes, Gruber would have defended Apple. If Apple decides to release smallpox in 2017 instead of a new iPhone, Gruber will eventually come around to Apple's side, like he always does.
taylodl 10y ago
Since Apple is partnered with IBM why wouldn't they explore using Watson as a backend for Siri?
- twblalock 10y ago
  When has Apple ever used anyone else's core technology? Apple either develops their own stuff, or acquires a company and brings it in house (that's how they got Siri in the first place, as well as their own processor designs). Apple is not going to buy IBM.

toyg 10y ago

How can a company with cash reserves as large as several nations "not have engineering resources"? They don't want to get engineering resources on par with competitors, for whatever reason.

hga 10y ago
Not necessarily. A company can't just magic the best or even good/adequate "engineering resources", AKA human beings, out of thin air, as anyone who's tried to start a startup even with serious cash in hand can attest. Apple's corporate culture has a variety of things that I would find hard to imagine not suppressing their ability to hire and retain the best; I'm sure others have a better idea than I, but the #1 thing staring us in the face is that software is not respected.
- FireBeyond 10y ago
  I hear this regularly, and I don't buy it. It's not that black and white. No-one is suggesting or implying that Apple throws some money at HR and Monday morning comes around and they're sitting down a new multi-hundred person engineering team like magic. But at this point, OS X/macOS improvement has been in obvious decline (since 10.6? 10.8?) for _several years_. No, Apple can't just magic an engineering team out of thin air. Apple can, however, create engineering teams given several years of it being a pressing priority. They were able to for iOS, for watchOS, etc. But therein lies the rub - with every month that goes by, it's clear that to call it a "pressing priority" to Apple would be to give it an importance that they clearly don't feel it has.
  - twblalock 10y ago
    > But therein lies the rub - with every month that goes by, it's clear that to call it a "pressing priority" to Apple would be to give it an importance that they clearly don't feel it has. The question is, what is Apple's priority right now? The latest iPhone and Apple Watch models are incremental upgrades, and in the case of the iPhone, everyone expected a redesign (and Apple had two years to make that happen, but they either chose not to, or failed). macOS or whatever they call it now hasn't changed much in several years, as you pointed out. The Mac Pro is stagnant. The Mac Mini is stagnant. The new Macbook Pro model has the touch bar, after several years of sameness. The only recent Apple products that are a notable upgrade from their previous versions are the Apple TV with Siri, and potentially the touch bar Macbook Pro. That's all I can think of since the release of the iPhone 6 in 2014. I guess you could throw in the giant iPad Pro too, but I've never actually seen one outside of an Apple Store, so I don't know if they sell that well. I hope Apple has some exciting products lined up for 2017, because the past few years have been incremental at best.
    - grzm 10y ago
      The latest iPhone and Apple Watch models are incremental upgrades, and in the case of the iPhone, everyone expected a redesign Pretty much the only thing that didn't change on the iPhone in the latest rev was the form factor. Apple is also very well known for continual incremental upgrades. Yes, I'm going to quote Gruber: In every regard, from performance to battery life to camera image quality to haptic feedback to water resistance to wide color gamut displays to sound quality from the speakers, the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are impressive year-over-year improvements over the 6S/6S Plus, and stunning improvements over the two- and three-year old iPhone 6 and 5S — which are the models most people considering the new iPhones will be upgrading from. https://daringfireball.net/2016/09/the_iphones_7 https://daringfireball.net/2016/09/the_iphones_7 Is the lack of a form factor change in the iPhone 7 make you think the iPhone is not (still) a priority for Apple?
      - twblalock 10y ago
        Every two years, there was a new iPhone form factor. Everyone expects that to continue. Apple is aware that this expectation exists, because Apple created that expectation by releasing a new iPhone form factor every two years. However, Apple did not meet that expectation this year, and did not offer any explanation. If that was deliberate, it was probably a stupid business move and definitely a failure to manage expectations. If it was not deliberate, it indicates that Apple can no longer finish a complete iPhone redesign in two years, which it was able to do in the past. Either way, it's not good. Frankly, John Gruber is a poster boy for rationalization of Apple's mistakes. He's like a dog that gets kicked and keeps coming back to its owner. If the iPhones were exploding instead of Galaxy Notes, Gruber would have defended Apple. If Apple decides to release smallpox in 2017 instead of a new iPhone, Gruber will eventually come around to Apple's side, like he always does.

taylodl 10y ago

Since Apple is partnered with IBM why wouldn't they explore using Watson as a backend for Siri?

twblalock 10y ago
When has Apple ever used anyone else's core technology? Apple either develops their own stuff, or acquires a company and brings it in house (that's how they got Siri in the first place, as well as their own processor designs). Apple is not going to buy IBM.