It’s obvious that Apple has a “my house, my rules” kind of approach to managing its App Store. And it’s even more obvious that the company isn’t very fond of Google at the moment.
So it’s really no surprise that after three weeks, it has yet to approve the highly-anticpated Google Search update — you know, the one that adds the Siri-like Google Now feature… Read More
If you’re subscribed to Apple’s official YouTube channel and have email notifications for new uploads enabled, an alert may have hit your inbox today saying Apple just uploaded the Siri ad starring film director Martin Scorsese (go here for a parody treatment).
And just like that, because the video has replaced the original clip, a bunch of web pages that have the original embed code in place now show empty boxes (don’t worry, I already updated our article with a new code).
At first glance, the commercial is exactly the same as the original ad from two weeks ago. At closer inspection, the new version removes the AT&T branding and fixes a minuscule editing error that only the pickiest of eyes would catch. That’s attention to detail for you… Read More
Nuance, the voice recognition engine that powers Siri, today announced a new kind of digital personal assistant aimed at mobile customer service apps. Called Nina, she “transforms iPhone and Android mobile apps into powerful engagement tools that allow customers to serve themselves”. Nina promises to cover everything from paying your bills to getting answers to your questions to changing or adding service on the fly.
Built on the same voice recognition engine from Nuance that Apple licensed for Siri, Nina can be added to iOS and Android apps via a software development kit (SDK) issued today as part of the announcement. What’s best, Nina doesn’t require that you tediously type in your password for various services and instead recognizes your voice to provide secure authentication… Read More
Last week, Apple started airing a new Siri commercial featuring the popular film director Martin Scorsese. The ad was the fourth in a string of celebrity spots focused on the digital assistant.
Unsurprisingly, a parody video has just been made to poke fun at the ad. You’ve seen “The Samuel L. Jackson ad you were hoping for.” Now, here’s “Scorsese’s alternate iPhone commercial…” Read More
A university in Taiwan has sued Apple over its use of dictation feature in Siri and the underlying speech recognition engine, claiming Apple’s implementation violates its patents. National Cheng Kung University has on Monday launched a lawsuit against the iPhone maker and is seeking undisclosed damages, though its lawyers noted that any calculation would be based on Apple’s U.S. sales of devices that use Siri, quite possibly amounting to millions of dollars in damages… Read More
If you’ve used Siri in the past, you know how reliable, or how unreliable it can be. For someone like me who speaks with a strong French accent, Siri gets it wrong more often than not, which led me to use Siri for very basic tasks instead of trying to push her limits.
If there is one time where Siri should be right on spot though, it’s during commercials or ads. But there again, it seems like Siri, or rather Apple marketing department, isn’t on top of its game.
In a recent ad placed on the back cover of the Economist, Siri was asked “what does poison oak look like” and she managed to return the wrong results… Read More
Apparently the handful of class-action lawsuits haven’t shaken Apple’s marketing team. The company has just released a new television ad starring its often-criticized digital assistant.
The fourth in a string of celebrity spots, famed film director Martin Scorsese co-stars with Siri in this new iPhone 4S commercial set in what looks to be a New York City taxi cab… Read More
No matter what your opinion of Siri is, you have to admit that it has really sparked an interest in digital assistants. Voice commands and recognition obviously existed long before the feature, but not like this.
And you don’t have to look any further than the competition for proof. Shortly after Apple unveiled its Assistant last fall, other manufacturers started beefing up their voice technology. Samsung, for example, now has its S-Voice, LG has Quick Voice, and there are several others bubbling up… Read More
When Apple unveiled Siri last fall, the tech world seemed genuinely excited. Sure, other platforms like Android and Windows Phone already had voice control, but Apple’s assistant seemed to be on another level.
Over the next few months, however, that excitement slowly began to wear off. Siri’s beta roots started showing with service outages, and a noticeable drop in accuracy. And then the lawsuits started to appear… Read More
Just as Apple has finally settled its long-standing legal dispute in China over the iPad moniker for a cool $60 million, paving the way for the official tablet launch in the country, a new patent infringement claim has been filed.
This one targets Apple’s Siri digital personal assistant. As it would seem, Siri might have taken more than a few clues from an interesting voice-activated technology a local firm patented back in 2006, months before the first iPhone had been unveiled.
This development could potentially be devastating now that Apple is gearing up to launch the iPad in the country because the device will come preloaded with Siri as part of a fall iOS 6 software update… Read More
HiddenHelper is a jailbreak tweak that’s the public successor to the GhostSiri concept tweak that we posted about a while back. HiddenHelper, like GhostSiri, aims to accomplish the same deed — allow you to use Siri without actually bringing up the Siri UI.
Where HiddenHelper one-ups GhostSiri is in the options department. In HiddenHelper’s settings panel, you’ll notice provisions for enabling certain Siri snippets where a UI is necessary to receive proper response; Wolfram Alpha queries are a great example of this.
Check out our full video walkthrough for the details… Read More
Curious to figure out which is more accurate for searching, Apple’s Siri or Google’s traditional search engine, Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster pitted Siri’s voice-activated search against Google’s old-fashioned text-based searching. He and his team set out to ask their iPhones a total of 1,600 questions, 800 on the busy streets of Minneapolis, 800 in a quiet room. His findings will no doubt come as a surprise to even the most vocal Siri proponents out there… Read More
Google announced a lot of shiny new things yesterday during its mid-morning media event. Among those, was the next version of Android OS with a built-in voice assistant.
The company’s Google Now voice commander is the latest in what’s becoming a long line of “Siri competitors.” But it looks like this one might actually be up to the task… Read More
Apple kicked off this month with its WWDC keynote, unveiling the next version of its mobile operating system: iOS 6. Then Microsoft quickly followed with its Windows Phone 8 announcement. And now it’s Google’s turn.
Google’s I/O keynote is already underway this morning, and the search giant just unveiled its next version of its mobile platform Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). The update features a Siri competitor, UI enhancements, and more… Read More
Steve Jobs used to defend his “thermonuclear” option against Android by stressing how Apple did not enter the search space while Google had decided to challenge the iPhone with its Android.
Jobs’ words no longer hold true. With Siri, an AI-driven personal digital assistant, Apple has begun slowly but surely eating into Google’s significant search traffic coming from iOS devices.
As such, Siri is emerging as a key tool for casual search on iOS devices. And with iOS 6, Apple is expanding her reach with new alliances, making it easier for users to bypass Google, especially for local search… Read More
Since it debuted back in 2007, the iPhone has become somewhat of a point of reference for other smartphones. It seems that every time a new handset is released, we hear: “is this the iPhone killer?”
And it looks like the same thing has happened with Apple’s digital assistant. “Siri competitors” seems to be becoming a popular meme, as we’ve already seen one from Samsung, Google, and now LG… Read More
A few days ago, we found out a little bit more about the mysterious Eyes Free feature that Apple unveiled last week. The Siri component will allow vehicles to offer native, in-car support for the digital assistant.
Today, we’ve learned some information regarding those cars. According to a new report, GM is looking to be a frontrunner in the Eyes Free adoption race. And it plans to start with its Spark and Sonic models… Read More
We’ve known for awhile that Google’s been working on improving Voice Actions in Android. Needless to say, last October’s release of the iPhone 4S and its headline voice assistant feature dubbed Siri sent Google’s engineers back to the drawing board in an attempt to re-envision what conversing with an Android device should be like. According to the well-informed Wall Street Journal, the search giant has now “accelerated” plans to bring Siri competitor to the market.
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As Scott Forstall rattled off a list of Siri’s new capabilities in iOS 6, there was one particular feature that really stood out: Eyes Free. Apple will be teaming up with auto-makers to take its digital assistant act on the road.
But outside of a list of manufacturing partners, and a brief explanation of how Eyes Free will work, not much else has been said about the new feature. How will it be implemented? And when can we expect to see it? Read More
The other Steve never shied away from criticizing the company he co-founded with Steve Jobs in his parents’ garage back in 1976. The Times Union chatted briefly with everyone’s favorite geek during his visit to a New York farm of rescued horses and of course the inevitable question of Siri criticism came up. Here’s what came out of him… Read More
