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"Over time, things have really soured between Siri and me. We barely speak anymore," says the...
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Monday, July 16, 2012, 6:36 PM ET"Over time, things have really soured between Siri and me. We barely speak anymore," says the NYT's Nick Bilton, discussing his falling out with Apple's (AAPL) voice-assistant software. Bilton adds the latest version of Google Voice Search (GOOG), an element of Google Now that's found on Android 4.1, is a superior alternative, and others seem to agree. Google has plenty of incentive to deliver a quality rival to Siri, given how it diverts traffic from Google search. (previous: I, II)
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This news story has 14 comments:
It's interesting that the NYT's Nick Bilton says this is what makes GVS 'smarter' than Siri... In fact, GVS is just a dictation interface...
GVS is, by design and at its peril, trapped in that dictation role. Ultimately, I would rather have my voice assistant understand local context and my own personal information, and - this is important - show deference to that! For example, if I ask about someone and that person is in my contact list (or I follow them on Twitter or I'm friends with them on Facebook), that's the information I want first, not a Google search result. Google cannot make money with that model, hence their single-minded focus on search and paid links; Apple, however, can. Integration with the universe of apps that customers want and use and their own personal information will ultimately create a superior user experience and larger market opportunity than a dictation interface to Google search...
Is Apple there yet? No way. Siri is still clearly beta software, the pace of its improvement is slow, and I don't find it particularly useful (yet). Its promise as a tool will ultimately depend on how Apple seamlessly integrates its functionality into its mobile platform and the third-party apps running there, as well as its own search capabilities. The API is key. It's not really about Siri vs. GVS, it's about what those tools are connected to and how they are integrated...
I do believe that Apple is pursuing a much larger opportunity than what Google has done, which is to trap GVS as a front-end to Google Search - basically, make it a dumb dictation machine... It's actually not 'smart' at all...
Nick Bilton is factually correct but completely misses the larger point...
Also, what's wrong with using google search? Is that really a negative? It's still a great way to get relevant information.
Just like back in the days of the Gould's and the Meehans, todays hedge funds pay millions of dollars out to spread stories to help their long or short position on a stock. I wonder how fat the envelope was that was waiting on Mr. Bilton's.
Having said that, there are as many out there that say Seri is better than Google. His story is just that, it isn't a true scientific study, not that it would matter to the end user.
I could go on about how much better his piers are as Journalist, but what's the point.
Long APPL