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John Giannandrea named to Apple’s executive team

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Re: John Giannandrea named to Apple’s executive team

#191
post #122

Lots of comments about improving Siri here. This is interesting to me for several reasons I won't address, but I will ask this: Do people really use voice commands for, well, anything? From a purely functional standpoint, they seem super awkward to me. I like buttons that click and reassure me of every input. I like to feel confident my actions won't be misinterpreted. I like that no one else near me will get weirded…

Yes. And for my 5 1/2 year old son, who’s always had voice around, it’s very natural. The first words I utter every day are “Alexa, start my day”, which triggers a whole bunch of automation (lights, plugs, news, etc) while I get my cereal and coffee ready.

Re: John Giannandrea named to Apple’s executive team

#192
post #122

Lots of comments about improving Siri here. This is interesting to me for several reasons I won't address, but I will ask this: Do people really use voice commands for, well, anything? From a purely functional standpoint, they seem super awkward to me. I like buttons that click and reassure me of every input. I like to feel confident my actions won't be misinterpreted. I like that no one else near me will get weirded…

I say "Wake me up at 7" and "Turn off my alarm" every work night and work morning. If I'm ever timing something (like how long to let my French press steep), I say "Set a timer for x minutes."

You can set an alarm once for M-F, etc.

Re: John Giannandrea named to Apple’s executive team

#193
post #55
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Google’s strategy is to be emulated, then why is hiring someone who was part of that strategy a bad move on Apple’s part?

I'm not saying it's a _bad_ move. It's just insufficient. And until they unclench wrt publishing nothing is going to change for them. And even after they do that, it will take a lot of convincing (and large wads of cash) to hire the best talent that can not only get Siri to catch up to Google, but overtake it. My problem is not with Giannandrea's new position, it's with the lack of urgency on Apple's part. My patienc…

you’re the mark jackson of tech commentating. you refuse to commit to any fact, likely because you dont have any to share, yet you feel oh so strongly for your argument, so you try to base it on intangibles like “lack of urgency”.

Re: John Giannandrea named to Apple’s executive team

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The keyboard issues were fixed in the 2018 MacBook Pros. And there is no systemic issues with the security chips. We have entire floors of developers using MacBook Pros and no one has had “frequent crashes” from the T2 chip.

I know it tends to be more preference, but even on the 2018 MacBook Pros I find the keyboards terrible. Dust and spill resistant sure, slightly improved tactile response yes, but unlike my 2015 MacBook Pro my fingers seem to get strained and sore from the butterfly keyboards. I like travel in my keys.

I had the same experience with the new MacBooks - tired fingers. Ended up switching to a Dell XPS. That might not be an option for many, but I was pleasantly surprised by how nice the keyboard feels. I would've gladly paid Apple for an updated version of the 2012-2015 (2016?) version, but ultimately had to vote with my feet.

Re: John Giannandrea named to Apple’s executive team

#195
Reading the dumb things people in this thread go to the effort of making a voice controls for simply for the sake of using voice controls perfectly summarizes how useless voice control tech is. You're literally saving seconds of effort in order to open up yourself to an infinite amount of attack vectors. You deserve to be pwned.

Re: John Giannandrea named to Apple’s executive team

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do people really use voice commands for, well, anything? Siri plus shortcuts have made many mundane tasks easier. When I get in my car to come home from work I say "Hey Siri, heading home." That causes my phone to text my wife my arrival time and starts the last podcast I had playing. It's a simple thing, but is so much easier than texting and then thumbing through the podcast player to start where I left off. I ha…

I never got Siri to work that well. I found it's had problems calling and some of it's standard features. It's still on my iPhone, there's no way to remove, but I've found Google Assistant to work better. Plus, the Google Home integration is nice.

I use Siri for almost every task that doesn’t require me to physically look at my screen, e.g. reading, watching a video or typing. The #1 and #2 problems I have with Siri recognizing my input are in order: the quality of the mic I’m using and the ambient noise level in whatever environment I’m in. The #3 problem is the quality of my network connection because it won’t work if it can’t contact Apple.

In my experience, AirPods are the best Siri input device I own. EarPods are a distant second, and the built in mic on phone is a not very distant third. It is effectively unusable on my laptop’s built in mic.

The ambient noise basically means I can’t use Siri in noisy places, and I’m typically not inclined to. I might raise my voice a little if I’m putting in a podcast outside and it is windy.

#3 means disabling WiFi when I leave my house, until I’m in a location with a solid WiFi connection, in part because I make use of my cable WiFi. If I have no service and no WiFi then I have no Siri, not even to set a timer.

Beyond that, I find the basic feature set adequate, but not comprehensive. Siri shortcuts doubled Siri’s usefulness and I only use them for three or four apps.

That said, I appreciate Siri’s presence because it does enable me to leave my phone in my pocket a lot more than I used to, so there will occasionally be a week where I didn’t spend more than an hour or two looking at my phone’s screen the entire week (not per day, per week), with 90% of this time spent reading a book. Observing my friends’ obsessions and work habits, I appear to be the outlier in that regard.

Re: John Giannandrea named to Apple’s executive team

#197

Reading the dumb things people in this thread go to the effort of making a voice controls for simply for the sake of using voice controls perfectly summarizes how useless voice control tech is. You're literally saving seconds of effort in order to open up yourself to an infinite amount of attack vectors. You deserve to be pwned.

Also the "Apple is gonna make voice control mainstream!" arguement in 2017+1 is hilarious. Apple has failed every new tech endeavor since the iPhone. The tablet, the smart watch, the touch bar, the ear pods, forcing usb3- everything has been a failure.

Re: John Giannandrea named to Apple’s executive team

#198
post #122

Lots of comments about improving Siri here. This is interesting to me for several reasons I won't address, but I will ask this: Do people really use voice commands for, well, anything? From a purely functional standpoint, they seem super awkward to me. I like buttons that click and reassure me of every input. I like to feel confident my actions won't be misinterpreted. I like that no one else near me will get weirded…

> Do people really use voice commands for, well, anything?

On my phone it's rare unless I'm getting in my car and having it pull up directions.

Where I found I use it all the time is with the Amazon Fire Stick. When I have a show I want to watch I don't have to fumble with a stupid keyboard on the TV, I just say the name and it works. Also setting timers in the kitchen when I'm cooking, it saves me from getting raw meat on all the surfaces

Re: John Giannandrea named to Apple’s executive team

#199
post #16

It's just unbelievable to me that the company sitting on a quarter trillion dollars is unwilling to spend a small fraction of that hoard to hire the best of the best in order to fix the very thing that will kill their cash cow in the next 5 years. I'm on iOS myself (and have been faithful since the first iPhone), but $30 Google Home puck feels like it's from the future. Understands me perfectly, comes up with decent…

The fundamental problem is that Apple has been focused on making end user products for a very long time, but Google has been dealing with data and the cloud for 20 years.

Apple could probably become as good as Google at its own game, but it would take a lot of effort and I don't think Tim Cook et al have the vision to move in that direction like Microsoft did.

I feel Apple will become more and more irrelevant as years pass. With a bandwidth singularity end user hardware will be irrelevant in 10-20 years from now and other companies like Google and Microsoft are slowly catching up in making great end user experiences.

Re: John Giannandrea named to Apple’s executive team

#200
post #16

It's just unbelievable to me that the company sitting on a quarter trillion dollars is unwilling to spend a small fraction of that hoard to hire the best of the best in order to fix the very thing that will kill their cash cow in the next 5 years. I'm on iOS myself (and have been faithful since the first iPhone), but $30 Google Home puck feels like it's from the future. Understands me perfectly, comes up with decent…

Um...you know JG was formerly at Google doing all that magic you love and is now at Apple, right?

Google is a lot more than one guy
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