Would we call that tech-o-cide? Heh. Well, some techie folks out there seem to think Siri is Apple’s current, biggest failure — and that’s a secret they’d like to keep.
Zooey Deschanel’s big, blinking eyeballs and stunningly gooftastic questions aside, Siri seems to be short on answers. The problem is Siri just doesn’t really work. More and more consumers are claiming that the feature suffers from unresponsiveness and issues with the voice recognition software. Well, actually The Week reports that its been called downright lousy. Ouch. We can imagine Deschanel’s question about whether it’s raining or not would garner a response much like, “…Why don’t you look outside…I’m busy.”
Among other things, some are beginning to wonder if Siri is basically a dud and an embarrassment to Apple. Oh, but they’ve spent so much money rolling this thing out, and making such a case for having your own personal iphone assistant, those of you who believe iphones aren’t anything more than fancy paperweights. That does make it pretty difficult to walk back.
The Week says:
“…The bigger problem is that Apple, apparently in denial, is still hyping Siri with big name celebs in nationally televised ad campaigns. You can bet Steve Jobs would have either killed Siri outright or at least pulled her back, hammering engineers until they fixed her.”
Yikes, but hilarious. The denial portion is so very Apple, yes? Earlier this week, chief executive Tim Cook publicly declared that Apple was “doubling down” on Siri because “consumers love it!” Haha! That’s sort of like saying, “Well, the bubonic plague solved that pesky rat problem didn’t it? Well, didn’t it?!” In actuality, insiders say that tech magnate, Steve Jobs, would never have let such a flawed product reach consumer hands. Er, um, but weren’t there lots of problems with the iphone at one point too — dropped calls, bad service etc.? No matter! This whole doubling down thing is exactly what Apple should do, says some heinie-covering dudes out there. Apparently, it’s the potential for future awesomeness that should keep Apple standing behind their celebrity-fueled snazzle, dazzle creation, and not abandon it like so much new-fangled, faddish flotsam.
Eric Jackson of Forbes thinks it’s just a matter of time before Siri really shows her stuff but until then it’s all about acquiring information.
“You need massive amounts of data,” which Apple is currently getting given how many people own the Siri-equipped iPhone 4S. The TV spots are helping drive search, providing Apple with truckloads of invaluable information. You can bet that by her first birthday, Siri will be vastly improved.”
Or, it will be that thing that was all the rage when people flocked to their windows to have Siri tell them it was about to hail in Boulder, Colorado, or whatever non-weather, non-gazpacho things Siri does. According to some, it really doesn’t matter that for right now, “Siri sucks.”
Joe Wilcox, another believer and writer over at Beta News, thinks invariably Siri could be the thing that will paint Google into a box.
“If Apple can perfect voice search on mobile, it will surpass chief rival Google and the game changes. Apple knows that whoever wins mobile search takes the prize.”
Really, it’s all about mobile search? We’d think it’d be more about beaming things right into our hands from across the room, but we’re sure that falls somewhere way below having your phone tell you where Radio Shack is on command.
Well, it looks like keeping Siri’s failings under wraps is just the start to whole, total tech domination, despite the fact that’s a lot of pressure to put on one computerized assistant/girlfriend(?) who can count spoofs as an achievement.
