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John Giannandrea to retire from Apple

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Re: John Giannandrea to retire from Apple

#251

Post by matt-attack »

TYPE_FASTER wrote: post #228
epistasis wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Siri was also completely miscommunicated from the beginning. I could never get Siri to do what I wanted, because I didn't realize that it had a very strict and narrow menu, but it never communicated what that menu was, and had no way of saying "here are the 5 things you can tell me about." And then there were the network communication issues where you don't know why you're not getting a response, or if Siri is going…

I didn’t know for years that you can ask it to do things remotely over SSH.

Can you explain?

Re: John Giannandrea to retire from Apple

#252

Post by bmandale »

PunchyHamster wrote: post #210
thatjoeoverthr wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In game design we used to call this opacity “hunt the verb” in text adventures. All chat bots suffer this flaw. GUIs solve it. CLIs could be said to have it, but there is no invitation to guess, and no one pretends you don’t need the manual.

CLI + small LLM (I am aware of the oxymoron) trained on docs could be fun

If you like deleting all your files, sure. LLMs, especially small ones, have far too high a propensity for consequential mistakes to risk them on something like that.

Re: John Giannandrea to retire from Apple

#254

Post by xnx »

thatjoeoverthr wrote: post #154
epistasis wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Siri was also completely miscommunicated from the beginning. I could never get Siri to do what I wanted, because I didn't realize that it had a very strict and narrow menu, but it never communicated what that menu was, and had no way of saying "here are the 5 things you can tell me about." And then there were the network communication issues where you don't know why you're not getting a response, or if Siri is going…

In game design we used to call this opacity “hunt the verb” in text adventures. All chat bots suffer this flaw. GUIs solve it. CLIs could be said to have it, but there is no invitation to guess, and no one pretends you don’t need the manual.

The lack of an advertised set of capabilities is intentional so that data can be gathered on what users want the system to do (even if it can't). Unfortunately, this is a terrible experience for the user as they are frustrated over and over again.

Re: John Giannandrea to retire from Apple

#255

Post by Marsymars »

the_snooze wrote: post #146
kshacker wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> voice simply isn't a great way to interact with computers in the general case You know I have talked to chatGPT for maybe a 100 hours over the past 6 months. It gets my accent, it switches languages, it humors. It understands what I am saying even if it hallucinates once in a while. If you can have chatGPT level of comprehension, you can do a lot with computers. Maybe not vim level of editing, but every single func…

I think the utility of voice commands is marginal at best in a car. In isolation, voice commands don't make sense if you have passengers. You basically have to tell everyone to shut up to ensure the car understands your commands over any ongoing conversation. And in the context of old fashioned knobs and buttons, voice is seriously a lot of complex engineering to solve problems that have long been non-issues. Not to…

How I miss old fashioned knobs and buttons. The utility of voice commands goes up when all your HVAC controls and heated car elements are only accessible on a touchscreen that you can’t use with the mitts you need to wear when it’s cold.

Re: John Giannandrea to retire from Apple

#256

Post by notatoad »

elAhmo wrote: 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…

if anything, siri has gotten worse over the years, which is wild.

it used to be able to set a timer or alarm 100% of the time, now sometimes it decides it needs to ask chatGPT for help.

Re: John Giannandrea to retire from Apple

#257

Post by gcanyon »

I know one feature Siri has added in the past fifteen years, because I always complained that Siri couldn't "text this photo to my wife." I would demonstrate to people that this doesn't work, complain about the lack of discoverability, and mention how with each new release of iOS I would try it again to confirm it still didn't work.

Then one time, in a job interview of all things, (I'm a PM and was asked for an example of a product I liked or didn't like) I went into this spiel, and what do you know, Siri texted the photo to my wife. :-)

So somewhere along the way they did add that feature, and apparently I didn't realize I had missed checking for it.

Re: John Giannandrea to retire from Apple

#258

Post by pornel »

kridsdale1 wrote: post #121
sethops1 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd throw in the failure to do anything meaningful with home automation, which I guess could fall under the Siri umbrella of failure. Maybe I'm still peeved big tech bought up the industry just to kill any innovation.

Hey, my 10 HomePods are able to turn off 80% of my lights at night, 80% of the time!

I've switched to Home Assistant, and it's sooo much better.

Home Assistant can even share devices with Home app, so you can still use "Siri, turn off the lamp" to have it answer "you don't have any alarms set".

Re: John Giannandrea to retire from Apple

#259

Post by sethops1 »

fidotron wrote: post #52
elAhmo wrote: 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…

Google Now. It's even completely gone and forgotten.

Ugh Google Now on my Pixel 3 was the last time I felt a genuine "wow" factor with tech. Everything since then has been between eye-rolling, uninteresting, or just worse.

Re: John Giannandrea to retire from Apple

#260

Post by stavarotti »

I just want whoever is next in line to make Siri perform reliably and consistently. Not 70% of the time of even 90% of the time, 100% of the time for the limited uses cases that most (perhaps just me?) people use it for:

- Call "person"

- Call "business" (please don't say "I don't see so and so in your contacts" and on a second try, work)

- Find "place" (while driving) - Define "phrase or word" (please don't say I found this on the web)

- Set a timer or alarm

- Check the messages (in a sane way)

- Set reminders (this one surprisingly works well)

- Use intents correctly (I just want to be able to say "play 99% invisible in Overcast")

It doesn't need to do all the fancy things they show-cased last year. It just needs to do the basics really well and build from there.

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