5 ms·

Normally I would count this as an auto-win for Apple but the interesting thing about these speakers isn't necessarily the hardware itself but the many services

by Yhippa 9y ago

Normally I would count this as an auto-win for Apple but the interesting thing about these speakers isn't necessarily the hardware itself but the many services that back them. I play with both Home and Echo a lot and I'm most impressed by how quickly Google is adding lots of useful functionality. Their documentation and evangelism for developing on their platform seems to be pretty good too. I think Apple will catch up quickly as they did with the Watch.

stdgy 9y ago
As far as I'm concerned, Siri is on death watch until Apple figures out a strategy to open it up. Outside of setting timers, creating reminders, setting alarms, doing a little dictating or mishearing directions, the product is stagnant. I just don't see a lot of utility going forward unless they liberalize the service and allow other people to develop new experiences for users. That should also give them new data to mine and allow good voice UI patterns to bubble up. Not sure how they should go about designing a framework for developers to plug-in to, though. It's a tricky problem. But presumably they've learned some things after 'sharing' some of Siri with Uber and Facebook and that could help them move forward.
- eridius 9y ago
  Apple already opened up Siri. Third-party app developers can now add their own Siri integration (though I don't know how extensive this is, having never looked into the details myself). But it seems like not very many third-party developers are actually bothering to do so.
  - dep_b 9y ago
    There's just a few things you can do. Call someone, send a message, hail a cab, ask for directions, stuff like that. Six scenarios in total. You could try to WhatsApp someone with Siri, probably that'll work. Though I hate using voice commands I never tried it.
- dkrich 9y ago
  I think that Apple has bet (correctly) that voice is a feature not a platform and that great hardware will make people buy into its services. Voice is great for a few things but very lousy for most things. Obviously it's all conjecture at this point, but my guess is that this product will augment the use of its devices for the things that voice is superior to GUI for (playing music and basic queries). Since Apple typically blows the competition out of the water with design and marketing, I imagine that this will do pretty well in this space (just imagine walking into an Apple store and seeing an IKEA-like display with a sleek home theatre and its speaker system on display). I do think that the walled-garden is concerning since you can't use it with all music services, for example, but on the other hand, if its a premium speaker system that might be enough to push me the other way and switch to Apple music. The question is is the product compelling enough to get people to buy into the platform.
  - darawk 9y ago
    Apple's prowess is in designing physically attractive objects, and easy to use UI. Voice has very little UI, and it has even less use for physical appearance. That's not to say that how these things look isn't important. It is. But it's nowhere near as important as it was with a phone.
    - dkrich 9y ago
      My argument is that voice isn't all that useful in general and that if Apple creates a much higher quality product than Echo, for example, that people will want it because it's a very nice speaker that looks really cool and can play music, give the weather, and set a timer by voice, which covers the majority of use cases. In other words, a voice platform that works 10x better than another may only be slightly more useful to the average consumer while if the actual speaker is 10x better, it might be 10x more compelling.
      - darawk 9y ago
        Ah, ya. Then I agree with you there.
  - 9y ago
- rajathagasthya 9y ago
  I'd really love if Apple integrated the Workflow app they acquired into Siri. I think it could be a straightforward way to let Siri do more useful things than just setting reminders and asking about the weather. They also have improve the voice recognition big time since Siri has real difficulties understanding if you have an accent.

by Yhippa 9y ago

stdgy 9y ago

As far as I'm concerned, Siri is on death watch until Apple figures out a strategy to open it up. Outside of setting timers, creating reminders, setting alarms, doing a little dictating or mishearing directions, the product is stagnant. I just don't see a lot of utility going forward unless they liberalize the service and allow other people to develop new experiences for users. That should also give them new data to mine and allow good voice UI patterns to bubble up. Not sure how they should go about designing a framework for developers to plug-in to, though. It's a tricky problem. But presumably they've learned some things after 'sharing' some of Siri with Uber and Facebook and that could help them move forward.

eridius 9y ago
Apple already opened up Siri. Third-party app developers can now add their own Siri integration (though I don't know how extensive this is, having never looked into the details myself). But it seems like not very many third-party developers are actually bothering to do so.
- dep_b 9y ago
  There's just a few things you can do. Call someone, send a message, hail a cab, ask for directions, stuff like that. Six scenarios in total. You could try to WhatsApp someone with Siri, probably that'll work. Though I hate using voice commands I never tried it.
dkrich 9y ago
I think that Apple has bet (correctly) that voice is a feature not a platform and that great hardware will make people buy into its services. Voice is great for a few things but very lousy for most things. Obviously it's all conjecture at this point, but my guess is that this product will augment the use of its devices for the things that voice is superior to GUI for (playing music and basic queries). Since Apple typically blows the competition out of the water with design and marketing, I imagine that this will do pretty well in this space (just imagine walking into an Apple store and seeing an IKEA-like display with a sleek home theatre and its speaker system on display). I do think that the walled-garden is concerning since you can't use it with all music services, for example, but on the other hand, if its a premium speaker system that might be enough to push me the other way and switch to Apple music. The question is is the product compelling enough to get people to buy into the platform.
- darawk 9y ago
  Apple's prowess is in designing physically attractive objects, and easy to use UI. Voice has very little UI, and it has even less use for physical appearance. That's not to say that how these things look isn't important. It is. But it's nowhere near as important as it was with a phone.
  - dkrich 9y ago
    My argument is that voice isn't all that useful in general and that if Apple creates a much higher quality product than Echo, for example, that people will want it because it's a very nice speaker that looks really cool and can play music, give the weather, and set a timer by voice, which covers the majority of use cases. In other words, a voice platform that works 10x better than another may only be slightly more useful to the average consumer while if the actual speaker is 10x better, it might be 10x more compelling.
    - darawk 9y ago
      Ah, ya. Then I agree with you there.
- 9y ago
rajathagasthya 9y ago
I'd really love if Apple integrated the Workflow app they acquired into Siri. I think it could be a straightforward way to let Siri do more useful things than just setting reminders and asking about the weather. They also have improve the voice recognition big time since Siri has real difficulties understanding if you have an accent.