I don’t have Siri yet, but I’ve already heard many positive things about Siri. Here is one for you, the TechnologyReview’s article Could Apple TV Use Siri? makes a good point! Now, this where I think Apple’s tightly controlled operations of how certain products should be marketed and produced is no longer effective when it comes to a product such as Siri. I think, instead of allowing only iPhone 4S to have Siri, Apple should have enabled Siri on all of its products (i.e., all devices).
Apple’s Siri is probably the best of its kind out there right now, but only right now if you know what I mean — wink, wink!!! Just take a look at Microsoft, this company is well known for working with voice recognition and it has Kinect to boost its technological edge. Now, Microsoft needs a brain for Kinect!
When Microsoft’s Kinect gets something even better than Siri, I think Apple will be sorry for not allowing Siri to be even more prolific. Microsoft also has the intention in getting Kinect to be on all devices that run its platforms. So, soon we will see Kinect to be used with PCs and Windows Phone 7 and more. Coupling something better than Siri with Kinect this/that way, I can imagine how sorry Apple will be!
Apple is having one up at the moment, and yet it fails to take the advantage of something good. Instead, it decides to play the wall garden hardware/software strategy. People know they want Siri very much at the moment, but not everyone will have the money or the will to upgrade to iPhone 4S just for Siri (i.e., they can wait for iPhone 5). While people are waiting for iPhone 5, a short window of time opens up for Microsoft and others to cook something even more potent than Siri and to release that something awesome everywhere at prices that make people care not for getting iPhone 4S or iPhone 5. Microsoft and others probably by now knowing that Siri is something people really want, and so these companies will push hard and fast for something better than Siri.
Only Microsoft has the biggest edge, because it has Kinect. Think about you can talk with a personal assistant as Siri in intelligible manner and yet you can also control anything with hand gestures, isn’t this even better than just Siri alone? It’s a match makes in heaven for the two technology to be combined.
Some people prefer to use hand gestures at night time, because whispering will wake their partners up from sleep. OK, that sounds like hardcore, no life, gamers who play games throughout the night and do not want to wake their partners up from sleep. Nonetheless, that is only one example of how Kinect and Siri combination can be so enticing! I think other people will be even more imaginative in their use of a something that combines the capabilities of Kinect and Siri together.
I think Apple should make Siri to be available in all of its products (e.g., hardware, software). Remember Microsoft Word’s paperclip? Why not Apple’s Siri in everything, because it is way better than Microsoft Word’s paperclip. Siri isn’t meant to be walled inside one kind of devices, but Microsoft Word’s paperclip is meant to be walled inside the Microsoft Word’s wall garden only!
The TechnologyReview’s article Could Apple TV Use Siri? makes a good point, therefore Apple should listen! Otherwise, Apple will see something better than Siri from a competitor to be even more prolific than Siri in term of grabbing the marketshare. Proof? Just take at how Google’s Android platform is able to spread like wildfire, because Apple is not effectively opening its iOS platform up for even more devices! Apple should not make the iOS mistake for its Siri, because Siri isn’t iOS — it’s something much more, something closer to what most people want! Can it be something as science fiction’s artificial intelligence which can understand humans and have a real conversation with humans and have feeling for humans?
Vinh Nguyen
