8 ms·

I don't even really use any other Apple products, and have never really been particularly comfortable with smart assistants, but I have to say that the steps th

by qchris 6y ago

I don't even really use any other Apple products, and have never really been particularly comfortable with smart assistants, but I have to say that the steps that they've taken here with E2E, non-AppleID-tied identifiers, on-device computation, and of course the really good price point have got me seriously considering a purchase from them for the first time in a long time. For my family members that already have Apple products for their tablet, phone, etc., but have either Amazon Echo or Google Home smart assistants, I'm definitely looking that these as an option for holiday presents.

dmix 6y ago
> non-AppleID-tied identifiers One thing I've learned is the identity is absolutely everything in (mass) surveillance. The more places we can disconnect or obscure this as end users (or ideally consumers) the better.
haswell 6y ago
I'm pretty deep into the Apple ecosystem (iPhone, Watch, iPad, MBP), but when it comes to smart speakers, I've always used a combination of Echo and Alexa-compatible Sonos devices. The Alexa devices have always bothered me. Not just because of the baseline privacy concerns, but because it seems so damn easy to activate the trigger word on accident. The absolute worst part being a false positive activation of my Sonos system while watching a movie/show. When this happens (and it happens a lot), the audio volume of the show is lowered significantly to allow Alexa to hear the rest of the command. Pause the show, wait til "she" stops listening, rewind the show very slightly because I missed whatever was just said due to the volume shift, resume the video, instantly pause again at the moment she was originally triggered until she stops listening, resume the show, this time without having to rewind since I paused soon enough not to miss any dialog. Maddening. And the fact that all of these false positives get sent straight to Amazon doesn't make me feel great. I didn't need a HomePod for its audio quality since I already have great quality with the Sonos system, and couldn't justify the original HomePod's price as a command/control-focused smart speaker with a home already filled with Alexa devices. All of that to say, HomePod mini is perfect for me. I can throw out my Echos, disable Alexa on the Sonos system, and scatter a couple of Minis to replace the Echos. This is something I didn't realize I wanted.
- aasasd 6y ago
  Sounds like you'd benefit from some sort of an automation script where, when a movie or a show starts playing, Alexa is disabled.
- schrodinger 6y ago
  Can Homepod Mini control Sonos?
  - Thlom 6y ago
    The new generation Sonos support airplay2, so I guess so. To an extent at least.
- lostgame 6y ago
  >> The absolute worst part being a false positive activation of my Sonos system while watching a movie/show. South Park, being; well, South Park - actually did an episode taking advantage of this and trolling thousands of viewers: https://mashable.com/2017/09/14/south-park-alexa-google-home-nsfw-cartman/ https://mashable.com/2017/09/14/south-park-alexa-google-home... (not really SFW content, strong language)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- michaelbrooks 6y ago
  I know exactly what you mean, but if you say "cancel", it will shut it off faster. It is still a big annoyance which I hope gets fixed at some point in the future.
- jakejarvis 6y ago
  Binged Schitt’s Creek over the last few weeks and David shouting “Alexis!” triggered all of my Sonos speakers. Every. Single. Time.
  - ls612 6y ago
    I mean, if you binge The Witcher TV series you’ll probably trigger your apple voice products a lot. It’s the unfortunate consequence of choosing real names for virtual assistants. Only google home is really immune to this.
dweekly 6y ago
re: on-device computation, you'll note from the presentation that they said that no data is sent to Apple _until you say "Hey Siri"_. They're still doing transcription in the cloud which requires sending your voice for Apple to process and store. I have no issues personally with using cloud services like this but they very much used weasley language in the presentation and website to obscure the fact that Apple's cloud absolutely will get access to your unencrypted raw utterances following their wakeword detection, and cause people to conclude that that wasn't happening. As a side-note I find it a bit surprising that with all the history Apple has with Siri and the meaningfully powerful on-device ML acceleration that they still can't download and run a recognition model on-device that wouldn't require streaming your speech to Apple's servers...
- austinkhale 6y ago
  They don’t tie your request to your Apple ID and you can opt out of any recording being stored. Presumably this would make it impossible for a government body to subpoena your recordings, which as we’ve seen with Alexa is entirely possible.
  - liuyong 6y ago
    I think the big brother would always find a way to do that, ip? mac?...
- dzhiurgis 6y ago
  Pretty sure they do transcribe locally and only send text to cloud to interpret it. So still not private, but no audio is sent (unless for special cases).
  - fomine3 6y ago
    I'm not pretty sure. Now Siri sends voice to cloud after triggered by wake up word.
  - lxgr 6y ago
    No – Apple does transmit the audio samples and interprets server-side: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210657 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210657

by qchris 6y ago

dmix 6y ago

> non-AppleID-tied identifiers One thing I've learned is the identity is absolutely everything in (mass) surveillance. The more places we can disconnect or obscure this as end users (or ideally consumers) the better.

haswell 6y ago

I'm pretty deep into the Apple ecosystem (iPhone, Watch, iPad, MBP), but when it comes to smart speakers, I've always used a combination of Echo and Alexa-compatible Sonos devices. The Alexa devices have always bothered me. Not just because of the baseline privacy concerns, but because it seems so damn easy to activate the trigger word on accident. The absolute worst part being a false positive activation of my Sonos system while watching a movie/show. When this happens (and it happens a lot), the audio volume of the show is lowered significantly to allow Alexa to hear the rest of the command. Pause the show, wait til "she" stops listening, rewind the show very slightly because I missed whatever was just said due to the volume shift, resume the video, instantly pause again at the moment she was originally triggered until she stops listening, resume the show, this time without having to rewind since I paused soon enough not to miss any dialog. Maddening. And the fact that all of these false positives get sent straight to Amazon doesn't make me feel great. I didn't need a HomePod for its audio quality since I already have great quality with the Sonos system, and couldn't justify the original HomePod's price as a command/control-focused smart speaker with a home already filled with Alexa devices. All of that to say, HomePod mini is perfect for me. I can throw out my Echos, disable Alexa on the Sonos system, and scatter a couple of Minis to replace the Echos. This is something I didn't realize I wanted.

aasasd 6y ago
Sounds like you'd benefit from some sort of an automation script where, when a movie or a show starts playing, Alexa is disabled.
schrodinger 6y ago
Can Homepod Mini control Sonos?
- Thlom 6y ago
  The new generation Sonos support airplay2, so I guess so. To an extent at least.
lostgame 6y ago
>> The absolute worst part being a false positive activation of my Sonos system while watching a movie/show. South Park, being; well, South Park - actually did an episode taking advantage of this and trolling thousands of viewers: https://mashable.com/2017/09/14/south-park-alexa-google-home-nsfw-cartman/ https://mashable.com/2017/09/14/south-park-alexa-google-home... (not really SFW content, strong language)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
michaelbrooks 6y ago
I know exactly what you mean, but if you say "cancel", it will shut it off faster. It is still a big annoyance which I hope gets fixed at some point in the future.
jakejarvis 6y ago
Binged Schitt’s Creek over the last few weeks and David shouting “Alexis!” triggered all of my Sonos speakers. Every. Single. Time.
- ls612 6y ago
  I mean, if you binge The Witcher TV series you’ll probably trigger your apple voice products a lot. It’s the unfortunate consequence of choosing real names for virtual assistants. Only google home is really immune to this.

dweekly 6y ago

re: on-device computation, you'll note from the presentation that they said that no data is sent to Apple _until you say "Hey Siri"_. They're still doing transcription in the cloud which requires sending your voice for Apple to process and store. I have no issues personally with using cloud services like this but they very much used weasley language in the presentation and website to obscure the fact that Apple's cloud absolutely will get access to your unencrypted raw utterances following their wakeword detection, and cause people to conclude that that wasn't happening. As a side-note I find it a bit surprising that with all the history Apple has with Siri and the meaningfully powerful on-device ML acceleration that they still can't download and run a recognition model on-device that wouldn't require streaming your speech to Apple's servers...

austinkhale 6y ago
They don’t tie your request to your Apple ID and you can opt out of any recording being stored. Presumably this would make it impossible for a government body to subpoena your recordings, which as we’ve seen with Alexa is entirely possible.
- liuyong 6y ago
  I think the big brother would always find a way to do that, ip? mac?...
dzhiurgis 6y ago
Pretty sure they do transcribe locally and only send text to cloud to interpret it. So still not private, but no audio is sent (unless for special cases).
- fomine3 6y ago
  I'm not pretty sure. Now Siri sends voice to cloud after triggered by wake up word.
- lxgr 6y ago
  No – Apple does transmit the audio samples and interprets server-side: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210657 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210657