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And they needed an analyst to find that out? I thought Apple was quite clear about that in their presentation, there was no way any alert listener could have m

by ugh 15y ago

And they needed an analyst to find that out? I thought Apple was quite clear about that in their presentation, there was no way any alert listener could have missed that. Siri has the potential to be awesome because of that if it works well. We will find out soon. I’m curious.

skimbrel 15y ago
There's a lot of editorializing from the Android camp that seems to think Siri is just Apple playing catch-up to Google's voice search. Guess we'll see who's right in five days.
- tensor 15y ago
  It's not "just" playing catch up. It's partly playing catchup, and partly expanding on it. And to be fair, the credit should go to the Siri team more so than to Apple as a whole. They innovated and Apple bought them and added polish. So why are some Android users less than impressed at the gushing over Siri? Because we've been able to do many of the things you see in the video demonstrations for a long time now. Some examples: "Navigate to <local restaurant name>" "Text <person> <some message>" "What is the weather in New York?" "What is the time in Paris?" Siri integrates more features in a polished way and also adds context to the queries. By context, I mean that the interpretation of the next request can depend on the previous requests. While little has been released on the actual technical constructs of these systems, I would imagine that they work somewhat similar to this: 1 Translate voice to list of text interpretations. 2 Guess an intent based on each text interpretation, combining the translation and interpretation score. Pick the action of highest score. The intents need to be hand coded. Siri likely modifies the second step by allowing intent inference to be based on the last command or couple of commands in addition to the current request. That is the innovation, and I use the word innovation lightly as I'm sure the idea has been thought of in academic circles. A lot of people seem to think "you can throw anything at it" and I seriously doubt that is true. The library of intents might be large enough to fool some people, though. It isn't revolutionary, it's a well executed incremental improvement on what we already have. It's worth mentioning that there are also other applications such as Vlingo that try to expand the capabilities already present on current day systems. None-the-less, Apple's excellent marketing team seems to have convinced people that this is revolutionary and that Apple should be credited with yet another huge world changing innovation. The media needs it's heros and there can't be heros unless the valuable contributions of the many people whose work led to this point are forgotten, marginalized, or simply reattributed.
  - swombat 15y ago
    That is the innovation, and I use the word innovation lightly as I'm sure the idea has been thought of in academic circles. Just a quibble. Innovation is, according to the dictionary, the "introduction of new things or methods". This is quite different from invention, which is "an act or instance of creating or producing by exercise of the imagination, especially in art, music, etc". Invention can be done in academic circles, but innovation needs someone to actually roll up their sleeves and introduce the damn thing - in this occurrence, introduce it to the vast, chaotic, challenging consumer electronics market. Apple certainly takes no credit for inventing voice recognition, or any of the concepts used in Siri - in fact, Apple invents very little. However, they should get full credit on the innovation side. As an easy example, tablets were invented for decades before the iPad, but they were not effectively introduced to the consumer market until the iPad. That's innovation - turning ideas into realities - as opposed to invention - coming up with new ideas. Both are essential.
- jemeshsu 15y ago
  I would not consider this a "catch up", no one knows who develop this tech first. Google probably heard about Apple's plan and is able to bake it into Android first. Look at Google TV. Google get it into the market first, but it was a half cooked product.
  - markokocic 15y ago
    Is Android half cooked product?
w1ntermute 15y ago
> And they needed an analyst to find that out? What do analysts even do? Sounds like they just make random predictions about businesses which they don't even understand. If they turn out to be right, they take the credit. If they turn out to be wrong, they just sweep it under the rug and hope nobody notices.
- chime 15y ago
  Think of them as datapoints in a large survey. If you run the Teacher's Union Pension Fund with $10B, you can't just trust your internal team or one or two large advisors. You want to get as much information as possible about all the sectors of the economy, locally and globally. So instead of hiring 1000 people to do the research for you, you pay 10-20 different companies to access their newsletters, briefs, and suggestions, each of which is written by an analyst. If 75% of analysts say "Buy APPL" while 5% say "Sell APPL", rest being neutral, you can get an idea of what the general market sentiment is. To put it simply, instead of asking Gruber what he thinks of Apple management, you ask HN, Slashdot, and Ars readers. Certainly none of us has connections like Gruber but it is "safer" in the sense that it is easier to justify to a board/shareholders why you lost money on Apple.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 15y ago
    Does this necessarily improve your accuracy though? http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-19/apple-s-underdog-analysts-outperform-wall-street-from-helsinki-caracas.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-19/apple-s-underdog-an... http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/01/19/apples-blow-out-quarter-the-bloggers-called-it-the-street-blew-it-2/ http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/01/19/apples-blow-out-quart... This is one of the reasons I like to follow Apple to much. The majority of people apply the same old presumptions and rules to them and yet Apple consistently proves them wrong. Rather than adjusting their understanding of the market, most people simply repeat their mistakes. It seems the people who realise something else is going on is in the minority. What gives? I am definitely a fan of their products. But I try hard not to let that influence whether I think Apple will succeed or not.

by ugh 15y ago

skimbrel 15y ago

There's a lot of editorializing from the Android camp that seems to think Siri is just Apple playing catch-up to Google's voice search. Guess we'll see who's right in five days.

tensor 15y ago
It's not "just" playing catch up. It's partly playing catchup, and partly expanding on it. And to be fair, the credit should go to the Siri team more so than to Apple as a whole. They innovated and Apple bought them and added polish. So why are some Android users less than impressed at the gushing over Siri? Because we've been able to do many of the things you see in the video demonstrations for a long time now. Some examples: "Navigate to <local restaurant name>" "Text <person> <some message>" "What is the weather in New York?" "What is the time in Paris?" Siri integrates more features in a polished way and also adds context to the queries. By context, I mean that the interpretation of the next request can depend on the previous requests. While little has been released on the actual technical constructs of these systems, I would imagine that they work somewhat similar to this: 1 Translate voice to list of text interpretations. 2 Guess an intent based on each text interpretation, combining the translation and interpretation score. Pick the action of highest score. The intents need to be hand coded. Siri likely modifies the second step by allowing intent inference to be based on the last command or couple of commands in addition to the current request. That is the innovation, and I use the word innovation lightly as I'm sure the idea has been thought of in academic circles. A lot of people seem to think "you can throw anything at it" and I seriously doubt that is true. The library of intents might be large enough to fool some people, though. It isn't revolutionary, it's a well executed incremental improvement on what we already have. It's worth mentioning that there are also other applications such as Vlingo that try to expand the capabilities already present on current day systems. None-the-less, Apple's excellent marketing team seems to have convinced people that this is revolutionary and that Apple should be credited with yet another huge world changing innovation. The media needs it's heros and there can't be heros unless the valuable contributions of the many people whose work led to this point are forgotten, marginalized, or simply reattributed.
- swombat 15y ago
  That is the innovation, and I use the word innovation lightly as I'm sure the idea has been thought of in academic circles. Just a quibble. Innovation is, according to the dictionary, the "introduction of new things or methods". This is quite different from invention, which is "an act or instance of creating or producing by exercise of the imagination, especially in art, music, etc". Invention can be done in academic circles, but innovation needs someone to actually roll up their sleeves and introduce the damn thing - in this occurrence, introduce it to the vast, chaotic, challenging consumer electronics market. Apple certainly takes no credit for inventing voice recognition, or any of the concepts used in Siri - in fact, Apple invents very little. However, they should get full credit on the innovation side. As an easy example, tablets were invented for decades before the iPad, but they were not effectively introduced to the consumer market until the iPad. That's innovation - turning ideas into realities - as opposed to invention - coming up with new ideas. Both are essential.
jemeshsu 15y ago
I would not consider this a "catch up", no one knows who develop this tech first. Google probably heard about Apple's plan and is able to bake it into Android first. Look at Google TV. Google get it into the market first, but it was a half cooked product.
- markokocic 15y ago
  Is Android half cooked product?

w1ntermute 15y ago

> And they needed an analyst to find that out? What do analysts even do? Sounds like they just make random predictions about businesses which they don't even understand. If they turn out to be right, they take the credit. If they turn out to be wrong, they just sweep it under the rug and hope nobody notices.

chime 15y ago
Think of them as datapoints in a large survey. If you run the Teacher's Union Pension Fund with $10B, you can't just trust your internal team or one or two large advisors. You want to get as much information as possible about all the sectors of the economy, locally and globally. So instead of hiring 1000 people to do the research for you, you pay 10-20 different companies to access their newsletters, briefs, and suggestions, each of which is written by an analyst. If 75% of analysts say "Buy APPL" while 5% say "Sell APPL", rest being neutral, you can get an idea of what the general market sentiment is. To put it simply, instead of asking Gruber what he thinks of Apple management, you ask HN, Slashdot, and Ars readers. Certainly none of us has connections like Gruber but it is "safer" in the sense that it is easier to justify to a board/shareholders why you lost money on Apple.
- 2muchcoffeeman 15y ago
  Does this necessarily improve your accuracy though? http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-19/apple-s-underdog-analysts-outperform-wall-street-from-helsinki-caracas.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-19/apple-s-underdog-an... http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/01/19/apples-blow-out-quarter-the-bloggers-called-it-the-street-blew-it-2/ http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/01/19/apples-blow-out-quart... This is one of the reasons I like to follow Apple to much. The majority of people apply the same old presumptions and rules to them and yet Apple consistently proves them wrong. Rather than adjusting their understanding of the market, most people simply repeat their mistakes. It seems the people who realise something else is going on is in the minority. What gives? I am definitely a fan of their products. But I try hard not to let that influence whether I think Apple will succeed or not.