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How Apple let Siri fall behind the Google Assistant and Alexa

mashable.com

21–30 of 286 posts

Re: How Apple let Siri fall behind the Google Assistant and Alexa

#21

>>"It was slow, when it worked at all," Williamson said. "The software was riddled with serious bugs. Those problems lie entirely with the original Siri team, certainly not me." As Steve Jobs said, once you become a VP you can’t make excuses anymore. You have crossed the Rubicon and need to start taking responsibility for the failures of your team. This guy has a lot to learn about leadership.

It's a terrible quote. Apple PR is going to be pissed with that guy.

Re: How Apple let Siri fall behind the Google Assistant and Alexa

#22
The cofounder/CEO of Siri contests the depiction of the scalibility issues in the original Information article:

> This statement, wholly false, was made by the architect and head of the biggest launch disaster in Apple history, Apple Maps. In reality Siri worked great at launch but, like any new platform under unexpectedly massive load, required scaling adjustments and 24 hour workdays.

https://twitter.com/Dagk/status/974047743596404737

Re: How Apple let Siri fall behind the Google Assistant and Alexa

#24

You can probably point to a lot of quality failings at Apple as starting with Steve Job's death. Apparently he failed to teach and instill a culture of high quality and instead just focused on micro-managing everything himself. Steve Jobs may go down as both the best and worst CEO Apple ever had.

I dunno, Apple’s has some pretty terrible CEOs. Jobs might have been a dreadful micromanager and possibly a bit of an arse, but he did disrupt at least four major industries and lay the foundation for the most valuable public company ever. Whereas Sculley, Spindler and Amelio were a parade of failure from start to finish.

"but of an arse" is pretty generous for behavior that would cost him his job today.

Re: How Apple let Siri fall behind the Google Assistant and Alexa

#25
post #15

You can probably point to a lot of quality failings at Apple as starting with Steve Job's death. Apparently he failed to teach and instill a culture of high quality and instead just focused on micro-managing everything himself. Steve Jobs may go down as both the best and worst CEO Apple ever had.

Not true at all. Look up the story of Apple University. Jobs can't run Apple from his grave. He tried his best to leave Apple with the right culture and leadership in his view. And for the most part, Apple has done really well since he passed. No one is going to get 100% of things right 100% of the time, and Jobs is no different; things would have inevitably gone wrong under his leadership, too.

Exactly this—a particular anecdote from the biography describes his motivation. Apparently when the HP Touchpad failed, Steve Jobs viewed it as a tragedy more than a triumph:

> "Hewlett and Packard built a great company, and they thought they had left it in good hands, but now it's being dismembered and destroyed. It's tragic. I hope I've left a stronger legacy so that will never happen at Apple."

In creating Apple University he was really trying to instill a legacy that would outlast him. That said, when pulling out the "Steve Jobs never would have let this happen" card, it's also important to remember that MobileMe happened on Steve's watch, as did the iPod HiFi.

Re: How Apple let Siri fall behind the Google Assistant and Alexa

#26
post #8
post #6

The title of the article is "So this is why Siri is way behind the Google Assistant and Alexa". The submission title should be changed.

Mashable A/B tests their headlines. The original headline is one of the candidates.

Huh, cool.

I wonder if/when they'll start slipping in machine-generated headlines for a small % of the audience to train clickbait bots.

Re: How Apple let Siri fall behind the Google Assistant and Alexa

#28
Something always make me scratch my head. Is there any proof that actual people use and value Google and Amazon assistant more than Siri? Or is the leadership only designed by autoproclaimed experts and funky ad-hoc metrics?

I totally confess that I use Siri for only 3 things:

-Desactivating all wake up alarm during my morning poo

-Setting timers while baking

-Sending a « I’m coming » text to my loved one before riding my bike home

Yes, this is a very dumb and limited usage. But I don’t see Android users around me doing incredible things that I could be jealous of with their voice assistant. I am missing something? Or maybe it’s because I’m not in the US and we still have to catch up with the trend of using voice assistant more?

Re: How Apple let Siri fall behind the Google Assistant and Alexa

#30
post #8
post #6

The title of the article is "So this is why Siri is way behind the Google Assistant and Alexa". The submission title should be changed.

Mashable A/B tests their headlines. The original headline is one of the candidates.

Other variations:

"How Apple let Siri fall behind the Google Assistant and Alexa"

"Why Siri is so dumb"

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