Dec. 3, 2018, 3:12 p.m.
IT | Rants

Apple Missed The Spot With Siri

When you say "Apple", most people will respond with:

Ah... That Apple ecosystem

It is a concept well established that Apple has the best cohesion and integration between their devices of all manufacturers - and the reason is simple, they control both the hardware and software, and manufacture all their devices. So it is much easier to support an integrated network of devices when you control the protocols, hardware and software.

It is a major disappointment to me that Siri, Apple's voice assistant, is not integrated at all. I have several Apple devices, they all support "Hey Siri". However, they usually have no clue how to respond to my requests as they get confused. If I am sitting at my iMac Pro and say "Hey Siri", trying to talk to my HomePod to lower the volume, Siri on my iMac answers and tells me she cannot control my music as nothing is playing. Why does Siri on my iMac not know that HomePod is playing music? Context!

If Siri across my devices were aware of what is happening in this so called ecosystem of Apple, then they could have been much, much smarter. For instance, Apple should change Siri so that all your devices act as microphone only to a central Siri, with knowledge of your current actions and state of the ecosystem, so that when you speak a command, the closest device will pick up the request, forward it to the central decision engine and perform the action requested based on context, and on the target device that is most applicable.

Currently Apple's Siri is missing out on this huge opportunity to be smarter. This is not rocket science. It is not a far fetched idea. I can code it, so should a $1tn company.