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John Giannandrea to retire from Apple

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Re: John Giannandrea to retire from Apple

#101
post #11

Siri's awfulness really is a thing to behold. I haven't used an android phone in a while. For those users out there, does its voice assistant actually work?

Its gemini so at least its smartish and has some integration with the rest of the ecosystem so it can do some assistant work as long as its read mostly, but integration with the rest of the phone is almost non existent. It also struggle in noisy environments and in mixed language situations

Re: John Giannandrea to retire from Apple

#102
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From the outside looking in it really feels like Apple focused so much on privacy and now has no strategy of how to make that work with AI right now. Are you referring to https://security.apple.com/com/blog/private-cloud-compute/ ? The only way that AI will ever be able to replace each of us, is if it gathers our entire audio, text, etc history. PCC seemed like the only viable option for a pro-AI, yet pro-privacy p…

They are solving for privacy before solving for the UX. They should actually make something useful first, and then work backwards to making it private before releasing it.

With 1B+ users Apple isn't in the position to do the typical startup fast & loose order of operations. Apple has (rightly) given themselves the responsibility to protect people's privacy, and a lot of people rely on that. It'd be a really bad look if it turned out they made Siri really really useful but then hostile govt's all got access to the data and cracked down on a bunch of vulnerable people.

Re: John Giannandrea to retire from Apple

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be my new favourite definition of "failing upwards".

Where did they fail besides Siri? The rest look like fine achievements to me.

Netscape was the market leading browser into the early 2000s, corresponding with JG leaving it.

Never heard of Tellme, but it sounds impressive on a resume.

Metaweb was a good open-source fact database which subsequently got walled off once Google bought it.

Google Search works significantly worse now than it did under Amit, and I say that as both a user and a websearch Xoogler. (JG took over about a year after I left Google).

Siri is the subject of this article.

Re: John Giannandrea to retire from Apple

#104
I can't believe Apple still hasn't rolled back or majorly revamped AI notification summaries. It's been over a year since launch, and their primary use case is pretty much just sharing screenshots when it does something hilarious/inappropriate.

Re: John Giannandrea to retire from Apple

#105
post #9

Siri is probably among the products which had the most exposure to users (probably a billion+ users throughout iPhone's history) without capturing that opportunity to actually do anything meaningful with the huge user base it got for free. A decade and a half is insane timeline in tech industry, and huge majority of users use Siri the same way today as 15 years ago, setting a timer or an alarm clock. If they had 0 im…

It's actually crazy how they've seemingly managed to do absolutely nothing with Siri in a decade and a half. I legitimately have no idea what features it has had added, but I still try basic things and am shocked at how useless it is.

I was excited when I recently got an iPhone 16 Pro - it comes with Apple Intelligence! Surely this is how Siri leaps into the future and starts doing things like translating for me, or responding with a photo and some basic facts when I ask who Ariana Greenblatt is, or letting me convert from Krore to USD (it gives results for rupees every time it seems?) or...

Anyways, I asked it something basic, and Siri said it would have to use Apple Intelligence. Not like, prompting me if I want to use it, just saying it's needed, then turning off. I'm pretty confused as to what Apple Intelligence is at this point, since I assumed it would be Siri. "Hey Apple Intelligence" doesn't do anything, so I ask ChatGPT. It informs me that AI is, in fact, part of Siri. I... do not know why it gave me that response.

Back to timers and alarms.

Edit - this is your daily reminder that you can NO LONGER SHUT OFF IPHONES BY HOLDING DOWN THE POWER BUTTON.

Re: John Giannandrea to retire from Apple

#107
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you share a bit about your use case/experience? Siri does what I need it to do— send messages, create reminders and calendar entries, look up basic facts and cites the source, play music, add things to lists, etc. I’m curious if you’re trying to do things that I haven’t, or if you’re just having a very different experience with those same things? Or maybe just have higher expectations for it? Edit: why in gods…

The only time I find Siri useful, or I should say ~potentially~ useful, is while driving text, call and to ask basic facts. The amount of times I've heard "I can't show you that right now" after basic questions is insane. I just stopped asking it questions. Recently I asked "what engine is in a 2022 f150". Trying it without Carplay now, it literally just displays text. It should be able to TTS those results. What on…

I know there at least used to be a setting to specify if you get a verbal or text response based on whether or not the phone is locked. Maybe that would get it to stop just displaying text?

I pretty much only use it when I can’t look at the phone so I’m not sure if it’s still there.

Re: John Giannandrea to retire from Apple

#110
post #9

Siri is probably among the products which had the most exposure to users (probably a billion+ users throughout iPhone's history) without capturing that opportunity to actually do anything meaningful with the huge user base it got for free. A decade and a half is insane timeline in tech industry, and huge majority of users use Siri the same way today as 15 years ago, setting a timer or an alarm clock. If they had 0 im…

Uses for Siri:

1. Checking the current temp or weather

2. Setting an alarm, timer, or reminder

3. Skipping a music track or stopping the music altogether roughly 3 seconds after hearing the command, or 1 second after you assume it didn't work

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